


Wish You Were Here

by neville



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, Angst, Blood, Comfort, Eventual age difference, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts, M/M, Marauders' Era, Smoking, So much smoking you guys, Time Travel, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 18:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11236329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: A failed prank sends Percy into 1977; he decides he's not going to be boring, stuck-up Percy Weasley anymore, and suddenly, his crush on Sirius seems attainable.





	1. Pretty Vacant

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I've only proofed this once, so sorry if there's any mistakes! Hope you enjoy!

“Oi, mate, you alive down there?”

Percy’s eyes flicker open. He is aware of two things: one, that his entire body feels like it’s been set on fire and then smashed up by a troll, and two, that the boy squinting at him looks an awful lot like Sirius Black. It’s stupid, he thinks: there are so many things to _consider_ , like how on Earth he got here from The Burrow and why he’s in such awful pain, but all he can think about is the resemblance of this boy to a member of the Order.

“Oh, hello,” the boy says, grinning, “there we are; thought you were a goner there...” He pushes a hand beneath Percy and helps force him upright, Percy blinking away the black dots on his vision and leaning over to open his mouth, letting out a stream of what might be vomit and what might also be blood. “Or, you might still be.” The boy looks over to somewhere else, presumably to some _one_ else – Percy can’t move to look, he can barely move to avoid covering the front of his shirt in sick, and the boy bellows: “Prongs! Get the fuck over here and help me get this guy inside!”

Percy comes back into awareness in the Hospital Wing, feeling as if someone is sitting on his chest, the weight is so heavy. There aren’t any other students around that his limited range of vision can pick out, and Madam Pomfrey looks surprisingly young when she bustles over to him, insisting that he not move, that his injuries are extremely severe. The pain agrees with her, so he stays still, claustrophically rigid, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest.

“And so you found him by the Lake?” a voice asks that makes Percy want to sit up – he tries, but his body doesn’t respond, aching horribly, and so he only manages to half-heartedly prop himself up, his elbows shaking with the effort. “Ah. I see he’s awake.”

It’s Dumbledore: his beard somehow seems less magnificent, as if he’s cut it somewhere in the time between Percy’s graduation and now; Percy frowns at the blankness of his eyes. Surely turning up at Hogwarts post-graduation for no particular reason covered in blood and vomit would cause some sort of reaction? He doesn’t even remember it being term time – it’s the twins’ last year, and he can hardly imagine them missing out on resuming their ultimate year of bothering everyone, especially considering their plans for Umbridge that he’s overheard on more than one occasion. He tries to say something, only to find that his vocal chords aren’t really working and that he can only croak. Dumbledore raises his eyebrows.

“Perhaps you might want to save your voice,” he advises Percy, still showing no sign of recognising him, and turns back to the boy who found him (and who really, _really_ does look like Sirius), guiding him out of the Hospital Wing to continue their talk. Percy sighs, wishing he had an Extendable Ear or something of the sort, and he rests his head back down on the pillow, feeling weary beyond his years. He wishes, too, that he could _do_ something: he’s perturbed by how he’s here and what’s going on, and he wants the answers immediately, though he has a feeling he’s going to be waiting a long while, considering his condition.

He’s never felt so ill in his life, and sleep comes easily.

The next time he wakes up, the boy is sitting by his bed, reading the _Daily Prophet_ and drinking the water left for Percy. “Oh look,” he says, “you’re still kicking. Thought I’d seen the last of you when I found you.” He shuts the newspaper and leans forward, squinting at Percy, almost as if he’s _examining_ him – Percy shoves the thought away, though he really does feel like the boy is eyeing him up at some level. “What’s your name? I mean, I’ve been calling you Bloodyface, but I’m not sure it works anymore, since someone’s cleaned it up.”

“Percy,” Percy says, pushing himself up into a sitting position and finding himself spitting expletives with the pain. “ _Merlin_ – fuck – that _hurts_ ,” he winces, his entire face scrunched up; he wants to leave his body and exist by astral projection until he’s well, though he doesn’t know if there’s a way to do that, and he feels grounded by his breaths, shallow and desperate.

“Percy Merlin fuck that hurts,” the boy says, grinning mischievously. “Great name. Sirius Black.”

Percy pauses; perhaps he’s hallucinating. That would explain a lot of things. “Sorry,” he says, “I’m not sure I heard that right. You did say Sirius Black?” Sirius nods, looking bemused. Percy allows himself to finally flatten back down on the bed, easing the strain on his spine. This is great: he’s somehow respawned in the same time era as his present day crush (he tries not to think about the way he feels about Sirius, but suddenly it’s resurfaced like a smash to the chest worse than the one that’s currently crippling him). “Er – I’m sorry, my head isn’t all there. I feel very confused.”

“Yeah, you didn’t look too great when I found you,” Sirius says, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. Percy almost laughs: he’s wearing silver boots with glitter and heels; trust Sirius. “My friends didn’t want me to speak to you, but I thought since I’d gone to all the bother of getting you here, I might as well find out who you were. And so you know the name of your heroic saviour, of course.”

“Of course,” Percy says with a chuckle that feels like he’s being stabbed. He gestures as best he can to the newspaper. “Can I see that?”

“Sure, but there’s nothing really happening right now,” Sirius says, tossing it over; it takes Percy some time to try and spin it round to face him, and Sirius has to lean over to arrange it so that Percy can sit with it in his lap. “Need me to turn the pages for you?” The question is cheeky, and he has that glint in his eye that Percy recognises from gracing the twins’, but he seems genuine, too. It makes a difference from the twins, Percy thinks, as he looks at the front paper, his eyes falling on the date.

1977.

Nineteen fucking seventy-seven; part of Percy wants to congratulate Fred and George on somehow having achieved either the greatest prank of all time or somehow achieving _time travel_ without the use of a Time-Turner, but most of him wants to scream.

He starts spitting blood again, from either the exertion or the shock, and Sirius is sent packing by Madam Pomfrey, who demands that Percy stay still until she tells him he can move, due to his extreme state of illness; he doesn’t mind this time, because now he can _think_ and really think in the quiet of not being bothered, the only noise being the occasional student or two brought in for this or that. Someone breaks someone else’s nose and Percy has to keep himself from laughing at the insults the two trade back and forth; there’s something nice about being back at school, something nice about not having to worry about running into anyone who knows him and hates him because it’s nineteen seventy-seven.

He wonders if he’s still out there – the young him. He _was_ alive, he knows, and he wonders whether or not his own arrival negates his younger existence. He can hardly check: he can’t turn up at his own door, looking as typically Weasley as he does, and he has no idea what kind of havoc it could cause, interacting with himself – probably nothing, if he covered his tracks well enough, but he dismisses the thought. He can’t try something that dangerous.

He knows that this is the year before Sirius graduates – he’s hung around the Order long enough to pick up key dates here and there and pick up who knows who. His heart aches upon the realisation of who else will be in school: Harry’s parents. He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to look them in the eye knowing their son, knowing their future, knowing their lives cut so painfully short; even thinking about Sirius makes him dread the next time he has to see the now-boy: he looks too happy to be sent to Azkaban, to go through hell.

It’s a day or two before he manages to start successfully moving. It comes slowly, just sitting up at first, and then he can swing his legs over the side of the bed, though walking is still too much: it means, though, that people are going to come and question him, now that he can move and talk. He tries to formulate the lies before Dumbledore arrives, and arrive he does after Percy’s first lunch, a sandwich he thinks he’s going to throw up almost instantly. He feels pathetic, addressing Dumbledore while his fingers are white where they cling to a bucket, his face pale and near-green; even the veins on his arms seem bluer and more prominent than usual.

“Headmaster, I have so many things to tell you,” Percy says – his lies fall away in front of him; he can’t lie to Dumbledore, not when he’s the only person that can help. Dumbledore implores him to continue, though Percy loses his lunch first, inelegantly and loudly. “I’m not from here – I mean, I’m not from this time. I don’t know how, but I’ve come back – I’m from 1996, you see, but my brothers – they must’ve sent me back, I don’t know what’s going on...”

Dumbledore remains saintly calm, hands folded in his lap; he offers Percy a Chocolate Frog, but Madam Pomfrey shoots over in a matter of moments to confiscate it, and Percy knows too well he wouldn’t be able to eat it, anyway. “Let’s start with your name and your age,” he says calmly.

“Percy Weasley,” Percy replies, shifting, placing the bucket still sloshing with his own sick (he tries not to think about it) on the floor. “I’m technically alive as a child right now – Mother and Father... She’ll be expecting the twins soon.” He lies back down, trying to ignore the waves of nausea making their way through his gut again, though he can’t tell whether they stem from telling someone the truth or from being ill.

“I remember them well,” Dumbledore says fondly. “You do bear a striking resemblance. And you come from 1996, you say?” Percy nods. “We’ll have to return you, of course. I will try and procure a way of returning you – until then, if you could stay in school and avoid telling anyone where you come from...”

“Of course, sir,” Percy nods. “I just want to get back home. I don’t want to ruin anything.” He pauses. “You really don’t want to know about your future?”

“The future is as it will be,” Dumbledore says sagely, tapping the side of his nose. “I’m assuming you will have graduated school already, but there’s nothing wrong with repeating a year for the fun of it, is there?”

Percy’s face breaks into a smile. “Of course not, sir,” he says. “I would love to have another go.”

Dumbledore smiles back, and Percy, who never felt he understood Dumbledore, suddenly feels a striking of connection. “Excellent. I’ll procure some robes for you and find you a place in the Gryffindor dormitories.”

Percy frowns. “How did you know I was a Gryffindor, sir?”

Dumbledore, as ever, never explains himself, and Percy has no idea why he was expecting a sensible answer. Dumbledore merely responds that he takes too much after his parents to be in any other house, and he strides away into the distance; Percy frowns and watches the ceiling again, following the path of a spider from one end to another and down the wall, floating on invisible string.

His Gryffindor robes arrive the next day, as do enough clothes to last him, and a slip of parchment describing the location of his bed: he doesn’t know why he was expecting it to be the same, but he feels a twinge of disappointment that he’s not in the bed he used to be in. Sirius visits again the next day, bundled with excitement about the news.

“Same house, huh?” he says, examining Percy’s new robes. “Another Gryffindor. Good to have a new one.” He bumps Percy’s shoulder and Percy tries to ignore the pain that this brings back; he’s not going to be able to attend lessons full-time for at least another week, according to Madam Pomfrey, but he wants to move into the dormitories and at least get used to them and meet his new dormmates (he hopes that none will be as irritating as Oliver Wood, who would be sent off on steaming rants about Quidditch at a moment’s notice and stay up polishing his broom furiously and worrying aloud about every upcoming match). He needs to adjust. He needs to stop crying in the early hours of the morning because he misses his parents, wants to talk to them, desperately wants to send an owl off to Charlie or Bill bemoaning his situation.

Percy starts walking the next day, though with a walking stick. Sirius jokes that he’s like an old man in a young man’s body, and Percy can’t help but want to agree: he feels like he’s arthritic, like every bone needs cracked and muscle needs stretched, and he wants to scream with frustration as he hobbles across the Hospital Wing, though he does accrue more visitors in the following day with the arrival of the weekend: smiling and pretending he wasn’t under the instruction of him for a year, he shakes Remus’s hand, and then James’s, trying not to think that he’s dead or how he would feel that Harry is in so much pain, suffering so acutely, and he’s not sure he even wants to touch Peter, knowing the truth, but shakes his hand anyway, hoping his poker face lets nothing slip, but it doesn’t seem to.

He throws up his dinner again that night.

Sirius comes back, on his own this time. “They don’t hate you,” he says hopefully.

“That’s wonderful,” Percy says sarcastically, still trembling.

“Have you tried shoving your fingers down your throat?”

“Not sure I need to.”

Sirius stays with him until he has to scramble back to the dorms for curfew, talking to Sirius about this, that, and everything: he rates their teachers on a sliding scale, discusses the best and worst people in their year in every house, and Percy, though he can barely speak from the nausea (he even occasionally throws up, though Sirius takes no notice and keeps talking anyway and Percy loves his nonchalance, finds it kind), nods along and responds where he can.

Maybe he can make something out of nineteen seventy-seven, he thinks, when he’s emptied the contents of his stomach.


	2. Death on Two Legs

Percy has Charms with Sirius, and not just in the same class – they sit elbow-to-elbow at their desk and have to work together for every practical. They’re a model pair: Percy’s non-verbal casting is sharply impressive, without hesitation, and Sirius brings wonderful flourish to every spell, so much so that when they’re working on getting used to using wordless spells as efficiently as those spoken, Sirius’s Levitation Charm attempts to levitate a plate through the ceiling and higher still, which Percy corrects with a gentle flick of his wand.

“Nice one,” Sirius nods as he catches the plate in his hands, grinning confidently at Percy. “We’d make a ruthless team, you and me.”

Percy blushes. “Or a never ending duel.”

Sirius snorts. “I could probably outlast you.” This is likely true – Percy had had some training upon joining the Order, and though his duelling was so strategic he could usually floor someone in a flurry of spells, he struggled with longer duels; he ran out of energy, of breath, started thinking too much. He was best when he exploded out all at once, like a bomb of magic. “Still. Nice to see someone else who can cast without blowing something up every two minutes, and to actually be partnered with them.”

“I try,” Percy laughs. “Don’t sell me yet; I don’t know whether or not I might begin exploding things next week.”

Sirius groans. “You better not; I used to look like a fucking chimneysweep in first year, and that’s not a look I think needs repeating.” He reaches over and squeezes Percy’s shoulder. “I trust you a bit better than that.”

Just as they make their way to the door, they’re called back and asked if they’d help out for a few lessons in teaching the younger years. Sirius looks at Percy, and accepts on both of their behalves.

Percy is no good at commanding the respect of the younger students, but Sirius seems to have their admiration effortlessly, without so much as raising a finger; when he tells them to watch Percy cast, they watch raptly and, when he’s out in the yard sometimes they approach him to ask for help, which flushes him with gentle pride.

He’s sure Sirius grins at him across the courtyard as he explains to a second year that Undetectable Extension Charms are a tad above her skill level.

“I see you’re popular,” Sirius says next lesson; they’re teaching the first years Mending Charms, and it’s so far proven fruitless. Percy looks up.

“Apparently so,” he says with a smile. “In no small part thanks to you.”

“You would’ve won them over eventually,” Sirius replies. “You just have to show off enough. They love that. Or wearing leather jackets. The keys to success: leather jackets and wand ability.” He pauses. “Wand ability is probably key to a lot,” he says suggestively, and guffaws; Percy shakes his head, unimpressed, but finds his lips sneaking up anyway.

“You really display the finer points of seventh year maturity,” he quips, and Sirius just laughs harder.

The gap between them when James Potter gets in the way feels even worse when Percy remembers Sirius like that, eyes crinkled, laugh loud, beautiful.

* * *

“No,” Frank says, sharply, “Sodapop is the best character. He’s a sweetheart and always kind.”

“What? Shut the fuck up, Frank, _Johnny_ is clearly the best character. He didn’t deserve to die; he was the best, and just looking out for Ponyboy,” Alice replies, taking a drag on her cigarette; Percy had initially found it bizarre that students were smoking so freely and everywhere, chugging in the back of classrooms, but had quickly adapted, ignoring the health warnings of his own time in favour of fitting in. He accepts a drag from hers, watching the smoke trail out over the surface of the Great Lake.

Frank seems to accept this comment, tilting his head to the side. “Fine. I don’t know. They’re both great. What do you think, Percy?”

Percy takes another drag and hands the cigarette back to Alice; he smokes Rothmans himself, but he’ll make do with her Embassy when he has to. “I think Ponyboy was the real star of the novel,” he says, wishing he had the cigarette to gesture with. “He went through so much, after all. And here he is, telling us the story in his English class – that takes a lot of bravery, doesn’t it? So soon afterwards, too.”

Both Frank and Alice nod wisely at this, agreeing with him; Percy’s eyes flicker upwards as he hears commotion in the background, and though he hopes it isn’t them, it is: the Marauders coming trooping past in all their vain glory, looking as smug about their lives as ever. Alice reaches over and squeezes Percy’s arm.

“I’m fine,” he insists, eyes following Sirius. The only reason the Marauders leave him alone is because the only time they ever tried to curse him, Percy put Peter in the Hospital Wing, and because Alice commands enough of their respect to keep them away. Sirius looks apologetic every time, but Percy doesn’t want his apology, or his pity.

He just wants Sirius.

“Alright, Poncy?” James calls; Percy flinches, and Alice squeezes his arm even harder – though Frank doesn’t know yet, Percy had admitted to her in his first month his feelings for Sirius because he hadn’t been sure he could deal with the rift the Marauders had created on his own. He likes Alice a lot – she’s brilliant, smart and funny, always willing to protect him. Sometimes he struggles, when he remembers what happens to her; he wants to tell her about her son, how kind he is, how bright a smile he has.

He sits with Sirius in Charms and every lesson is wonderful, and every moment of seeing Sirius in between hurts him.

Percy stands up, wand in his hand, ready to send a thousand hexes at James – sure, he’s Harry’s father, but he’s also an asshole; Alice and Frank stand up too, but slower, warier.

“Come on now, Perce,” Sirius says, slowly, drawing his wand and stepping in front of James; he implores Percy with his eyes to stand down, to leave it, but Percy doesn’t want any of Sirius’s sympathy. He hates it. If Sirius is going to give him any pity, he might as well tell his friends to leave Percy alone, but he never does. “It’s not worth the fight, now, is it?”

“No,” says a sharp voice, and Percy starts, shoving his wand back into his robes, feigning innocence, but McGonagall has none of it. “It’s not worth it. Detention, both of you boys, my classroom, after dinner. I expected better of you, Marsh.”

Percy expects better of himself, most of the time, but something about dyeing his hair brown, ditching his glasses, tying his hair up, and being somewhere where nobody knows him has given him an edge; for the most part, he’s the same, but his patience is thin. He’s been through school before, and putting up with the worst parts again is a tiresome affair, one he sometimes just can’t put up with, especially with the storm of feelings he has regarding the Marauders.

They wander away, muttering between themselves; Alice and Frank say nothing, just sit back down, and Alice pulls Percy with her, handing him a whole cigarette. He appreciates the gesture; giving up a whole cigarette is practically a confession of love.

Frank and Alice don’t discuss the encounter further; instead, they resume their discussion on _The Outsiders_ , and Percy grins between puffs of smoke, in love with the mundanity.

* * *

Percy is called to Dumbledore’s office before dinner and before his looming detention; Dumbledore isn’t there when he arrives, always one to enjoy making people wait, though Percy resists the temptation to search his office, waiting, drumming his fingers on the arms of the chair.

His thoughts turn for the briefest moments to his siblings. He misses their presence in the common room; he wants to know how they are, what’s going on with them, whether or not they’re okay. He’s worried about Ginny ever since second year and somehow never been able to lose the fear that something bad will happen to her, and he cried the first time he saw one of Charlie’s scars, at the idea that big, brave Charlie could be hurt – fearless, wonderful Charlie, scarred all over.

He wipes his wet eyes with the back of his hand before Dumbledore can return. It’s not prudent, he thinks, to let anyone see him cry.

“So,” Dumbledore says, having appeared from seemingly nowhere and easing himself down into his chair, “you say your time travel was caused by an experiment of your brothers, gone wrong?”

“Yes,” Percy says, feeling uncomfortable. He’s been grilled in this same way over and over by Dumbledore, and yet they never seem any closer to answers; he’s been here for a couple of months already, and he’s assimilated: everyone knows who he is now, and he works away, chugging along with his homework and schoolwork that feels all too familiar, spending his afternoons and free time laughing and smoking with Frank and Alice out by the Lake and worrying about Sirius like the real teenager he’s never been before. He’s never had a crush like this before.

He had wet dreams over Oliver’s body; he has wet dreams over Sirius touching his chest and worshipping him like he’s holy. Percy has always been pretentious like that. Even his wank sessions seem to drip with Oscar Wilde gold.

“Do you know _what_ they were trying to achieve?”

“No,” he repeats, because this is always his answer, and he has to keep the sharpness from his voice – this is Dumbledore, and he must have his reasons. He digs his fingernails into the arms of the chair. “They were presumably trying out some new joke product, but that really is all I know. We’re not particularly close.”

“I see,” Dumbledore says thoughtfully.

“When am I going home?” Percy asks, allowing his desperation to seep out. He loves this time, in its way, but he misses his family – he’s less like an outsider here, sure, but something just feels wrong about the air. It’s not his. He feels like he’s going to choke every time he breathes, in a strange way; he’s never understood it, but he’s sure it’s a symptom of time travel. He’s never used a Time-Turner before, so he doesn’t know what it’s meant to feel like: he just knows how _he_ feels, and whether or not it’s the remnants of his crash landing or a side effect, he hates it. He inhales, and wants to spew nineteen seventy-seven back out.

“In time,” Dumbledore says.

Percy kicks the wall when he gets out of the office and lets out an earth-shattering scream of frustration that he can’t keep inside anymore; when he looks up, Remus is looking back at him, but neither of them say a word, and Remus continues on, leaving Percy alone on the stairwell. Their eyes don’t meet at dinner, either.

* * *

McGonagall’s idea of detention is a classic one: they’re left in the classroom with a heap of extra homework to do, including a practical assignment that apparently has to be done correctly before they can leave, and though Percy finds it all exceedingly easy, he’s distracted. The words blur into smudges of black, and though there’s nothing wrong with his contacts, he feels like there’s something wrong with his own head.

He gets up to open a window by hand and gets stuck there, standing, hands pressed against the bench, wracked with a feeling of sudden _illness_. Sirius looks over; he can’t be bothered with the work, and any excuse to stop is one good enough for him.

“Percy?” he inquires vaguely.

“Fuck off, you arsehole,” Percy mumbles, the nausea hitting him like a wave as he crumples to the floor. “You could’ve been my friend, but no, you have to be up James Potter’s arse, don’t you?” He groans, loudly, barely able to keep on his feet.

“I’m going to recommend that now isn’t the time to be insulting me,” Sirius says, hurrying over to Percy and resting a hand on his back. “You don’t look well. Do it later.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Percy snaps, forcing himself to straighten up.

“I know you hate me,” Sirius says, keeping his voice surprisingly level (he’s dealt with plenty an instance of Remus’s pre-lycanthropic tension, so Percy’s tantrum is nothing to him), “but you’re really not well, so let’s put aside that grudge for right now. Just sit down. I’ll go get you some water.”

Percy doesn’t argue this time because he really does need something to drink, so he lets Sirius help him up to a desk. He sits on top of it, knees pulled up to his chest as if it might help, and Sirius gives him a comforting smile before he wanders off.

Percy thinks he might not come back. He has no reason to.

He does anyway, coming back with a goblet of water and Percy gulps it down straight away, though the feeling has passed: he has this, too, waves of nausea that hit him and have no discernible reason. He blames it on the time travel and wonders if he’ll be sick forever.

“I don’t hate you,” he says over the goblet.

“You sure act like you do,” Sirius snorts.

“I like you,” Percy says; if he takes a detour to Sirius’s retort, he’ll never make it back to the point, and if he doesn’t say it now, he doesn’t think he ever will. Sirius looks up, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but closes it again. “You’re really pretty, and you were so nice to me, and I’m angry because you go along with those friends of yours and act like a dick to me in public. Why can’t you be like you are in Charms, the way you really are?”

“You know,” Sirius says thoughtfully, “I get the feeling you’re not who you really are, either,” but he places a hand on the side of Percy’s face and kisses him; Percy opens his mouth and kisses back, leaning back so that Sirius can pull himself up on the desk, surprised but receptive.

“I don’t know who I really am,” Percy mumbles between kisses, letting Sirius reach down and fumble with the buttons of his trousers, stroking through the fabric of his underwear; Percy whines and hooks his head over Sirius’s shoulder. He’s going to lose; he ignores that thought, digging his fingers into Sirius’s arms. He’s been waiting for this; this touch feels like a culmination of everything he’s ever done, and he’s not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

The Ministry never was for him, anyway.

He pulls his head back: if he’s going to do this, he’s going to at least look in the face of the man who’s doing this to him. Sirius doesn’t look at him, gaze focused on where his hand has strayed beneath Percy’s underwear; Percy cries out and spills himself in moments, too easily undone. (He can’t blame himself. He’s been waiting a long time for this.)

They kiss again, a little sloppier, and Percy does his trousers back up with shaking hand.

“Alright?” Sirius asks; Percy can’t help but laugh out loud, feeling like there’s something so stupidly wonderful about just that question.

“Yeah,” he says. “Pretty good.”

“Any chance you’ll do my homework for me?” Sirius asks, trailing his fingers through Percy’s hair and grinning at him; Percy doesn’t know why on Flamel’s green earth Sirius would ever reciprocate his feelings, but he seems to, and if he could, he’d just wrap his arms around Sirius and stay there forever.

“Maybe,” he mumbles. “If you do that again.”

* * *

Alice looks up from her own homework when Percy arrives back in the common room with Sirius. He takes a seat next to her, looking like everything in his world has slotted into place all at once. “Oh my Merlin,” she whispers, leaning in to him. “You two _totally_ did it, didn’t you?” (He’s certain she has not just a sixth sense, but a seventh one.)

Percy, unable to form words, nods; Alice grins, clapping him thoroughly on the back. “That’s amazing!” she beams. “I can’t believe it. I thought we were going to spend the whole year bemoaning your unrequited love, but apparently not.”

Percy looks like he’s still on Cloud 9 when he rests his head on her shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “Apparently not.”

“You’ve still got that Potions essay tomorrow, though,” she advises him. “Want me to cover for you?”

“Please.”


	3. Over My Head

Between dreams of Sirius’s hands and endless pleasure, Percy dreams of home. He dreams of his own time, though sometimes his dreams scatter to his own seventh year; he dreams about Penelope and Oliver, and then of winning the House Cup in his fifth year: his eyes fall on Neville, his round face, eyes bright with wonder.

He dreams of the older Neville he saw at the Triwizard Tournament, when he had gone to cheer Harry on, with hair curling at the back of his neck and a skew-whiff smile. They’re sitting somewhere on other ends of a table, and Neville is playing with a loose thread on his jumper.

“Your parents would’ve been proud of you,” Percy is telling him, but Neville isn’t listening. “They always valued kindness, and loyalty, and bravery – you have everything they’d ever have wanted, Neville!” He’s shouting now, loudly, furiously, but the table spins away from him and so does Neville and he wakes up again in 1977, promptly throwing up over the side of his bed.

* * *

“I hear you’re making rather permanent residence of yourself, Mr Weasley,” Dumbledore says the next time they meet; Percy couldn’t give less of a fuck what Dumbledore thinks about that, because it’s his business. “It is, then, perhaps good news that I have as of yet made no progress on returning you home, though I have reached out for help with your case, so there may soon be progress.” He leans forward over his desk, watching Percy over the rim of his glasses. “I presume that you have given thought to whether or not you’d like to return at all?”

Percy frowns. “But I have to, don’t I?”

“Nothing states that you have to, Mr Weasley.” Dumbledore stands up, admiring the view from his window. “Madam Pomfrey tells me of your ailments, and I understand that you might want to return in order to ease the chronic sickness; but, as I see, you have found your way into a certain Mr Black’s life, and if you wish to remain for the relationships you have made here, there would be no dishonour.”

“I… I haven’t thought about it,” Percy admits, taken aback by this revelation; he’d honestly never even considered that he could stay, that he could stay with the people he now loves. He’s always wanted to go home, too, but now the idea of being without his friends and Sirius makes his chest ache.

Though if he returned, Sirius might remember – no, he thinks, Sirius remembers Percy Marsh, with tied-up brown hair and no glasses, not Percy Weasley.

The frustration comes out in choked sobs. Dumbledore offers Percy a sweet, but he refuses.

By sheer coincidence, Remus passes by the stairs again; Percy is crying on the bottom step, exhaling Rothmans, and this time Remus does stop, crouching down, meeting Percy’s red eyes with his own. They remain still like that for a while, Percy hiccupping out tears, and Remus straightens up, disappearing off and away. Percy wonders where his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher went.

* * *

They speak more fondly and their hands touch more in Charms, but Percy bemoans the lack of contact with Sirius and his continued rivalry with the Marauders; he feels sometimes like nothing has changed, like Sirius’s lips on his own must have been some kind of hallucination. Maybe there’s something wrong with him that stems deeper than headaches and nausea; he makes it a point to ask Dumbledore if he knows anything about the side effects of time travel, but, as per usual, he’s not met with an answer.

He wishes he had someone to talk to about this – about the time travel, about the way he misses his siblings, about whether or not he should go home at all.

Sirius snatches him out of the common room one night, waiting until they’re outside to take his hand as they troop along the corridors; confused, Percy follows along anyway, placing his trust in Sirius and hoping that it’s not a mistake. Most of his mind is focused on how surprisingly soft Sirius’s hand feels against his own, and the gentle brush of Sirius’s thumb over his knuckle sends his heart racing in a way that makes him feel stupid – getting excited about holding hands feels stupid, but at the same time, it proves that he’s real, that _they’re_ real.

Sirius finds the Room of Requirement on the first floor and Percy follows him inside, swallowing. He knows of its existence, and he knows certainly what he used to use it for, and his heart pounds against his chest in response.

“Alright there?” Sirius asks with a chuckle, noticing that Percy is a hundred miles away.

He doesn’t quite expect the response he gets. “I’m really bloody scared,” Percy says, honestly, and Sirius sinks onto the bed in the centre of the room, Percy lying beside him, head in Sirius’s lap; neither of them for a moment remember the intimacy of their situation, wrapped in Percy’s sudden earnesty, something Sirius has been waiting to see, knowing that the Percy of day-to-day life isn’t all real. “I can’t tell you all of why – but I’ve never been in any situation like this before; I’ve never had sex, and the idea that I can lose control so easily is just…”

“If it’s any consolation, I doubt your mortal enemies will start sucking your dick in the middle of a duel,” Sirius points out, and Percy laughs, taken aback by the response; he lifts his head from Sirius’s lap to kiss him warmly, and tenderly, Sirius’s hand supportive at the back of his neck. “I’ll go slow, if you want me to.”

“I just want you to talk to me,” Percy begs. “I like you and I’d really like to actually spend some time with you.”

Sirius hums. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says, the non-answer like a hammer blow; Percy undoes the buttons of his shirt, pulling it off, and Sirius buries his face into the warmth of Percy’s chest, trailing hot kisses and sucking on a nipple, sending electric energy through Percy’s body. He whimpers.

“If this is going to be the time that we’ve got, then make this good,” he says when he finds his breath.

He’s terrified, still. Sirius holds his hand when he comes, and he almost cries for the gesture.

* * *

“You look bugged,” Alice notices; it’s rather easy for Percy to look bugged in what feels like the sub-zero temperatures of Scotland, bundled head to foot in as many layers as humanly possible that still don’t seem enough, but she seems to be able to look right into his soul and pick out the problem effortlessly – and here Percy thought her main talent was Transfiguration (Frank’s, of course, is of knowing exactly which plant in a line-up will kill you slowly and painfully). “Is it Sirius?”

Percy has an unlit cigarette between his teeth and he rolls it around in his mouth; Frank watches, still surprised to learn of Percy’s crush (and furthermore, of his reaching a certain base with), curious. “Yeah,” he says eventually, cupping his hands to light the cigarette, though the wind whips the flame out; he rolls his eyes, putting his cigarette back into his pocket, disappointed. “We went all the way, and I’m very excited on that front, but… I’m also sad.”

“Of course you’re sad!” Frank cries. “He nigh-on _bullies_ you in public. That’s not quite the expected behaviour of the ones we love – if Alice were to ever bully me, I…”

“You’d probably drop a Venomous Tentacula on my head,” she says affectionately, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “We’re set, Frank, love. Percy here is not.” She lights one of her own cigarettes and leans on Frank’s shoulder; he casts a bubble around them to repel the wind, and Percy curses that he’d never thought of the idea before. “Maybe you need to mean more to each other – Sirius is such a casual fling guy, he probably wouldn’t know real affection if it punched him with a glove in the shape of a love heart.”

“Maybe he doesn’t even know that you’re _not_ a casual fling,” Frank says with a delicate frown.

“Right,” says Alice, leaning forward and out of Frank’s charm so that her cigarette is stolen away immediately by the buffeting gales, addressing Percy to his face. “I’ll have a word with those goons, and Sirius. Percy, you just wait for the magic to happen.”

“Maybe he doesn’t really like me,” Percy muses. “Maybe he just wants to have sex with me.”

“He knows that _you_ like him, though, and I don’t think he’d take you for a ride like that,” Frank says, shaking his head and re-lighting Alice’s cigarette with a neat _incendio_. She beams, ducking her head back into the bubble. “I don’t know him that well, but I don’t think he’s like that.”

“Nah, he’s not,” Alice nods. “But I’ll talk to him. I’ll punch him in the face, if needs be.”

“It’s times like these I’m glad you don’t hate me,” Frank laughs. Percy can’t help but agree; he wouldn’t want to be on Alice’s bad side. She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s kind, but she can kick his arse into next week if she wants to.

* * *

Percy has Potions with Severus Snape – more than that; he shares a workbench with him, and despite the fact that Percy has proven himself keenly capable in the subject, Snape still seems to hate him. Percy is confused by this, considering their mutual torture by the Marauders, but he finds out whilst brewing a draft of Amortentia; he knows already what it’s going to smell like, and hopes no-one pays too much attention to him when it comes through.

It isn’t even to the stage of smelling like much more than plant when Snape leans over and hisses “smell of wet dog, will it?”. Percy doesn’t dignify that with a response, eyes flicking up for the briefest of moments.

“At least he washes his hair,” Percy says coolly. “Do you know what a bath is? They’re very good. Cleaning charms don’t block the smell of sweat, but I’m sure you don’t know that, since you must’ve adjusted to the smell by now.”

“I’d advise you to hold your tongue, Marsh,” Snape responds, seemingly unruffled. “There are spells within my repertoire that could have you begging on your knees for mercy.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me on my knees…”

Snape’s mouth draws itself into a thin and unimpressed line; Percy smirks to himself, rather pleased to be getting some form of revenge on his old Potions master (he’s convinced that Snape consistently gave him lower marks than he would’ve gained were he a Slytherin). It seems low, true, but something in Percy has changed upon assigning himself a new identity: the pressure is lessened; no-one expects anything from him anymore. He can be smart, but sharp-tongued; he can do all his homework in the day, and spend his evening breathing Rothmans like they’re air.

Percy is near to finishing the potion when he feels the usual wave of nausea; he ignores it, as he has to now. He can’t stop working every time he feels sick, or he might never work at all.

It persists, though, clawing at his throat. It feels horribly dry, and he’s about to excuse himself to fetch some water when it comes up his throat all at once, like iron; he crouches on the floor as he empties his stomach, though he’s not sure it’s his stomach so much as his stomach lining – in the moments before he passes out, the puddle on the floor in front of him is crimson, and he frowns, blacking out as he hears Lily Evans scream.

* * *

Percy wakes up in the Hospital Wing; he almost sighs when he recognises its interior, shifting and sitting up, thankful this time for his range of motion.

As his memory comes back, he experimentally shoves his fingers in his mouth, which still tastes like metal; they come out red. He screws his eyes shut, disgusted; he wonders if the side effects will get any more severe, and hopes that they won’t. He can barely deal with the sickness as it is.

“We should stop meeting like this,” a familiar voice says; Percy holds the sigh. He’s relieved, sure, because it’s Sirius, but he’s now going to be subject to at least twenty minutes of heartbreak, because it’s _Sirius_. “Do you remember how you got here this time?”

“Vaguely,” Percy responds, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and wiping the gathered sweat from his forehead; _what a way to make an impression_ , he thinks dryly: covered in blood and covered in sweat. Sirius casts a _tergeo_ on his hands and Percy flexes his fingers. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Alice would’ve clobbered me over the head if I didn’t. Besides, you know, you _puked blood_ , so I was just a bit alarmed.” Sirius takes a seat, rummaging in his pocket and producing from it a small pot with a tall and prickly cactus in it. “Brought you a present. It doesn’t really need watering, so if you can’t move, it’ll be okay. Might outlast you, at this rate.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” Percy mutters, but appreciates the thought anyway, leaving the cactus on his nightstand. “It’s not going to eat me or anything like that, is it?”

“Nope. Just a Muggle plant; I’m not James.”

“Thank Merlin for that.” Percy leans back against his mountain of pillows; they’re either generous in the Hospital Wing, or someone is giving them to him while he’s out for the count. “I don’t find James half as attractive as I find you.”

Sirius laughs, pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and resting his feet up against the side of Percy’s bed. “Fuck me, you’re cute. Are you allowed to smoke in here?” He lights up without taking an answer; Percy’s never seen him smoke the same thing twice, so he assumes that Sirius pilfers his, though Percy is too preferential to live like that. “Sorry I’ve been giving you grief; Remus says you’ve been upset. Hope that’s not my fault.”

“No, not at all. I have separate issues; you only make up a small proportion of my overall troubles.” Sirius offers Percy a cigarette and he takes it, hoping it’ll lessen the taste of blood, though the cigarette goes red in his mouth.

“Must be the only person at Hogwarts with me in the minority of your troubles,” Sirius snorts, crossing one leg over the other. “I’d love to know what the majority of your troubles are.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Percy replies, watering the cactus gently with his wand. “It’s complicated and personal and, as much as I like you and would _like_ to tell you, I really can’t.”

Sirius shrugs. “Fair enough.” He blows a smoke ring, and Percy finds himself stupidly impressed by such a typically Muggle trick. “Though, if Alice is to be believed, I’m shattering your heart into a thousand pieces. Sorry about that. It wasn’t actually my intention to make you miserable, for once.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Percy grumbles.

“What? I can’t just dump my long-term friends for you, cute as you are. Surely you get that; you’re smart.”

“You could’ve at least asked them to not be dicks to me.”

“I can’t control them!” Sirius sighs, folding his arms. “I get what you mean, but I can’t do much.”

“At least see me more, if you value me as more than a quick shag.”

“Alright. I’ll do my best, between all those detentions I’ve got.” He grins, plucking the cigarette from Percy’s lips and leaning in as he places his in Percy’s mouth. “Hope you’re not contagious.” He almost sucks the cigarette before swapping them again, taking a moment to smoke both at once; Percy feels as if this is strangely more intimate than actually kissing, with his blood in Sirius’s mouth (he’d mind, but Sirius doesn’t seem to). Their foreheads touch as they lean against each other. “How are you feeling?”

“A bit faint,” Percy jokes; Sirius chuckles. “Better, anyway. Might actually manage to finish my Amortentia before today is over.”

“Severus finished yours for you, to show off,” Sirius replies with a shrug. “Mine blew up in my face. Not quite what I was expecting.” He brushes some of his hair behind his ear. “What do you smell in it?”

“Cigarettes. Boot polish. Hairspray. Dog.”

Sirius leans back as if taken aback by the truth: that Percy really does care for him, and not lightly. Percy has had feelings for him ever since joining the Order in 1995 and speaking to him over tea and the occasional Firewhisky, and it’s only been worsened by working with him in Charms, discussing this and that with each other over their elbows and clapping each other’s backs over a well-cast charm or from late-night revision sessions into the early hours, where hatred divisions fade and everyone sits and works together regardless of their feelings. Percy has worked with Sirius more than once, coming together to write each other’s essays, and he’s found that there are few occasions that bond people like staying up together into the early hours.

Percy’s always had feelings like firecrackers.

“Do you… do you smell me?” he asks warily. “Truthfully.”

“No,” Sirius replies, “and that’s the truth. But it’s also the truth that I like you that way. I’ve just got some unrequited love to get out of the way first.” He exhales his last puff of smoke before Pomfrey snatches the cigarette from between his fingers, scolding him severely; Percy spells his away neatly, trying to suppress his disappointment that he doesn’t mean so much to Sirius. “Don’t be down about it. You’re my number one.”

“How can’t I be down about that news?” Percy sighs, running his fingers through his hair, freed from its usual ponytail; it’s long now, and curly, and dark brown. “I mean… I think too much for this.”

“Stop thinking, start kissing,” Sirius corrects, tilting Percy’s mouth open with his thumb and kissing him, carefully, sensitively, hand gently ghosting along Percy’s arms, prickling the hairs.

When he leaves, he deposits a wireless on Percy’s nightstand. “Alice tells me you like a bit of Fleetwood Mac.” He grins. “Me too.”

* * *

Percy is made to stay in the Hospital Wing until classes finish for the day so that he doesn’t feel the temptation to return to classes; he tunes into a radio station that plays rock and reads Frank’s copy of _Loot_.

Alice and Frank visit at lunch, as does Lily, to make sure he’s okay (James, of course, doesn’t join her). Lily is nice, at least, and fetches him more water; Alice brings some of her stock of Chocolate Frogs and can’t stop her own excited babbling over her and Frank’s shared love of Joe Orton (when he gets back, Percy thinks he might just have to shunt a few of Frank and Alice’s books onto Neville; he’ll probably enjoy them, too), taking up the entirety of lunchtime with it, Frank trying to butt in and ask how Percy is, only to be spoken over, though Percy can tell he doesn’t really mind: he’s rarely seen two people as in love as Alice and Frank – they’re on the same wavelength.

He tries not to think about their fates. He tries not to want to stop it. He just can’t stop himself from falling in love with people.

“It’s going to be Christmas soon,” Alice remarks over dinner. “Where are you staying, Percy? You’ve not got family, do you?” He shakes his head, apologising internally to all of his siblings (all of whom he loves dearly, still). “You can stay with me, if you want. I’ll have to owl my parents, but they’ll be okay with it, so long as I tell them you’re gay so they don’t think you’re having it off with me.”

“That’s fine,” Percy nods. “Unless they’re going to be mean about it.”

“They’re not like that,” she assures him. “Frank’s mum is really scary, otherwise I’m sure he’d offer.” If Percy heard right, Frank is staying behind at the greenhouse to help out with some of the plants, hence his not being there with them; he’d probably do something similar himself were he not so determined to do this year his way. “She’s tremendous, his mum, but scary. He usually comes over to mine in the holidays so that I can avoid her.” Percy laughs.

“Thank you so much for letting me stay,” he says. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me, I – this year so far, it’s been something else. Hard, but you and Frank have been so kind.”

“What? Don’t thank me! We’re your friends. It’s what we do – and, after washing up here so unwell all on your own, I could hardly be mean.” She grins. “And you’re not a bad guy; you’re good company and I like you.”

“Not sure about that last bit,” he snorts, taking the food easy, though he’s so hungry he wants to just devour it all.

“I have faith in Sirius Black’s taste in men,” Alice replies staunchly. “He’s an idiot in a lot of ways, but he’s never loved anyone I’ve thought wasn’t awesome.”

Percy glances over and up from his apple crumble. “And who’s he been in love with?”

Alice’s face falls like a depressed pastry. “Oh, Perce, don’t you know? He’s in love with Remus; he always has been.”

Percy’s heart sinks.

* * *

“Love is a curious thing, Mr Weasley.” Dumbledore strides back and forth across his office; Percy thinks that one day he’s going to set this godforsaken chair on fire. “It prompts people to do all sorts of things: bad, good, destined to change the world forever. And it makes fools of us all.”

“Sir,” Percy says, “I appreciate the lecture, but – have there been any developments?”

“One of the wizards I reached out to for help believes he will be able to create a solution – however, it won’t be ready until later next year. So think hard, Mr Weasley, about those you love the most, and about where you would like to spend your life.” He offers Percy a lemon drop; Percy declines politely. “I hear you have found a place to stay for the Christmas holidays?”

“Yes, Alice has said I could stay with her – Miss Longbottom – oh, no, that’s not her name yet…” Percy goes red.

“She does you a great kindness,” Dumbledore says softly. “Christmas is a time best spent with friends, and loved ones, and few love you more in this world than she does.” He takes a sweet for himself. “I am certain that Mr Black will come around. Your conviction for him is extremely strong; to deny you would be his mistake.”

“Yes, well…” Percy shifts uncomfortably. “He’s just using me, isn’t he?”

“Perhaps things are not as you think they are, Mr Weasley.”

Percy scoffs, but the idea soothes him anyway.

* * *

“Hey, Percy!” The common room has descended into leaving-day chaos, and though Percy has packed his abject lack of possessions, he’s waiting on Alice, who seems to own more than can fit into her suitcase; he’s had to cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on it so that she stopped trying to cram her cigarettes in his bag, and it’s not even past ten in the morning.

He glances up at the source of the noise; Sirius is pushing through the chaos to him, looking pleased with himself. “Got you something,” he says keenly. “I know Alice is into Muggle stuff, so she’s got a turntable - or maybe more wizards have a turntable; my family’s not a shining example of normality.” He beams as he passes Percy Fleetwood Mac’s _Rumours_ in glorious 12” vinyl; Percy’s jaw gently drops.

“You got this for me?” he asks, in disbelief.

“Yeah! Rocking album. I mean, I’m more into the Pistols in terms of Muggle music, but this stuff is still good.” Sirius leans in to press a quick kiss to Percy’s cheek, one that no-one else notices. “Happy Christmas and that, if I’m not around to listen to it. I might visit.”

“I’m so sorry, I don’t have anything for you,” Percy babbles, but Sirius shakes his head.

“Don’t care,” he says. “Happy Festive season, and all that.”

Percy smiles, open and honest in its love. “You, too.”


	4. The Passenger

Alice’s parents don’t know that she smokes, so she and Percy smoke on the rooftops when they do, her sprawled out on the tiles with him perched like a bird, crouching like he’s waiting to pounce and take flight. It’s, as ever, far too cold for it, but that’s what they love about it, wrapped up in coats like duvets and heated with whispered spells.

She accidentally turns his hair blue on Christmas Eve: bright like the colour of the sky, and he leaves it like that because it reminds him of Tonks and of what is his home by truth and right. He’s not sure it suits him, though Alice’s cousins have fun putting it up and braiding and plaiting it when they’re over, pestering her with questions about her relationship with him in that way that seven-year-olds do, until she gets tired of it and explains in no uncertain terms that Percy is in love with a man and that, yes, men and women can be friends and no more.

Percy throws up blood in her toilet and screams because he sees Fred staring back at him in the surface of the water; he scrambles to the corner of the bathroom and keeps quiet, though he’s excused from the family functions for the rest of the day.

He spends it on the roof. He puts his hand in his mouth and pulls it out red and leaves it that way, staring intently at it: _this is not where you belong_ , he tells himself. _This is what this world is doing to you. Life has to go on._

Alice climbs up later when everyone is gone, and she cleans up his hands in horror. “Are you okay?” she asks him. “Really. You seem sick.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m fine. Just… sickly. I’ve always been that way.” He rests his head on Alice’s shoulder. “I’ve just been thinking – about where I came from. How I ended up at Hogwarts, that sort of thing; it’s just… it’s just that it bothers me.”

“You don’t remember it, do you? How you got here.”

Percy cringes at the lie. “No. And that’s why I think about it.” He squeezes closer in to her arm, sighing softly; it’s times like these he misses his parents, misses the twins (they were absolute shits, sure, but they had time for Percy when he really needed them; they always did, because something about seeing him crumble perturbed them, all the way to their bones), misses Bill and Charlie. Alice is wonderful, but this is not home, and Percy can’t help himself but yearn for it.

“We could find out, you know,” she says encouragingly. “There must be some way – I’m sure we could figure out how you got here, and with Frank’s help…”

“Alice,” Percy says slowly, “the thing is, I don’t want to know. I just want to get on with things and stop worrying about the past. I just want to worry about _now_.”

“And what, does that mean crying your eyes out because Sirius doesn’t love you?” Alice sighs, voice tight, exasperated. “I just want you to be happy, Percy.”

“I _am_ , Alice.”

“You don’t seem it.”

He blows smoke out into the dark winter evening. “This is probably the happiest I’ve been in a long time,” he laughs. “I’m being an actual teenager. I get to be an actual, _real_ teenager! That’s so much more than anything before – I mean, I get to have friends, and smoke, and be in love, and have sex… I feel real.” He stubs the last of his cigarette on the tiles. “I’ve never felt this way before,” he breathes, “but I can’t think about anything but the past that I don’t have.”

Alice looks at him, and she doesn’t even know what to say to that. She puts an arm around him. “Do you want to come and listen to Fleetwood Mac and have some supper?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “That’d be great.”

* * *

“You’ve got some cracking taste in men,” Fred says with a laugh. “He’s very good-looking.” He’s squatted within one of Hogwarts’s many alcoves, and he’s talking with a cigarette in his mouth. It’s not lit, but Percy knows it’s menthol anyway; he has a sixth sense for detecting menthol cigarettes, because he fucking hates them.

“Yeah,” George whistles. “Not as good as our Oliver, maybe, but we’ll agree to disagree.” He plucks the cigarette from Fred’s mouth to light it and blow a menthol plume into the corridor. “Bummers are deaf.”

“What?” Percy looks over, blanching as he realises his mistake, George clipping him round the ear and hooting with laughter. “Piss off, George.”

“Sorry, Perce. I just saw the opportunity.” They’re watching Sirius scrub the walls, muttering curses as the portraits cover each other’s ears. “I love you. Hope you know that.”

“How could I forget it?” Percy sighs. “It means you’re going to haunt me from here to eternity.”

“Exactly,” Fred grins. “But, you know, we’re good for some things, in the end. Without us, you’d just be pining; now, you’re pining, but also getting done up the arse.”

“That’s a vulgar way of putting it,” Percy mutters, choking on a menthol cloud. “He held my hand. It was sweet.”

“Hand holding doth not love making make,” George quips. “But alright, if you say so, then it was sweet. I put my faith in you and your opinions, Perce.” He leans forward, squeezing Percy’s shoulder; they come so close that his hair grazes Percy’s cheek. “You better not waste this. Go get him, Perce.”

Percy wakes up and reaches for his shoulder, clasping at empty air; it’s Christmas Day, he’s lying on the floor at Alice’s bed, and it’s still nineteen bloody seventy seven.

* * *

Alice’s parents know how to celebrate Christmas: the house is decorated floor to ceiling, tinsel wrapped around their paintings and around lamps, and though they have plenty of little snowmen and St Nicks resting on every available surface, they’re joined by ceramic elves that float around and narrowly miss taking Percy’s head off every now and then. Their tree is magnificent, too: it’s so tall that the uppermost branches tickle the ceiling and it’s crammed with baubles from what feels like every country in the world though surely can’t be, even some from now-dissolved countries.

The presents stack high under the tree, too, in a patchwork of wrapping paper; everyone in the house uses their own, Alice tells him, and because she’s a disaster with wrapping presents, even with her wand, she usually uses up more than one roll a year. He smiles: he’s used to the same wrapping paper, year on year, whatever his parents can get their hands on, and it’s never bothered him before, but he likes this, too, peering into another family’s tradition.

Alice’s present to him is more clothes; she apologises that it’s boring, and not literary, but Percy doesn’t mind: he has to work overtime washing his clothes because he has so few, so any more is a relief and unburdens his workload. His present to her, provided helpfully by Frank on account of Percy’s abject lack of money, is _Madame Bovary_ , a book he thinks he enjoys rather too much.

After breakfast and before the annual fiasco that is Christmas lunch begins, Alice and Percy retreat to her bedroom. She cracks the window and they both light up, Percy placing the needle on _Rumours_ and watching it spin on the turntable. “Sorry that Sirius isn’t here,” she says, basking in the peculiar winter sun that belies how cold it really is, the chill biting into Percy’s skin as he peels his (or, more correctly, Alice’s oversized) T-shirt off, replacing it with a velvet green button-up that she’s bought for him. “I know he’s probably your ideal present, but trying to get him off James when it’s ideal time for havoc is nigh-on impossible.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Percy replies with a grin, affixing his belt, quite unable to figure out whether to have it a tad tight or a tad loose, as there seems to be no happy medium. “I like spending time with you, Alice. You’re a good friend. Nobody said you had to take me in – I could’ve stayed at Hogwarts, after all, but you invited me anyway.”

“I couldn’t leave you out there to pine all on your own!” she insists with a laugh that comes out full of tobacco, choking softly on her smoke cloud. “Or leave you out there at all, really. You’d have gotten lonely, and I think you’ve had enough of that, don’t you?”

Percy snorts, resting up against her bed. “I really rather have.”

She pops to the bathroom and he takes that moment to cry for the Christmas jumper he’s not going to have from his mother; he hates them, sure, but he just bloody _wants one_ – it’s not Christmas without being wrapped up in his mother’s love, bemoaning it with his brothers and Ginny. He pulls himself back together, snapping together like a magnetic jigsaw when she comes back, wearing a long flowing white dress and looking wonderfully hippy, save perhaps the eyeliner and her Docs, which serve quite functionally to give the impression that she could kick someone’s arse (Percy knows rather well that she can, too; he fears for the day Neville ever successfully casts a _stupefy_ , because with his parents’ magic running through his veins, he might make someone explode).

“Think I should brush my hair?” she quips of her cropped hair; Percy laughs a little more than he expects at that, trying to contain the flutter of feelings in his stomach.

“I think you’re alright,” he says, “but I might brush mine.”

* * *

Christmas lunch is so hearty Percy thinks he might explode before dessert has even been set in front of him; he forces his way through it anyway, and he has to lie down afterward, sprawled out on Alice’s bed as she reads _I Capture the Castle_ aloud to him, battling with Stevie Nicks for his attention, making her way through a packet of cigarettes as he dispels the smell as easily as breathing.

An owl arrives for him, scratching impatiently as Alice’s window; she swears at it through the glass, pulling her window open to let it in, shivering from the cold. “It’s for you, Perce. When’s Frank going to send me his letter? He’s late.”

Percy unravels the parchment, another piece falling out from it. “Two letters? I’m popular,” he remarks, reading the one he was opening first and leaving the surprise letter on his lap.

 _Percy,  
I’ll be over for New Year’s. Dress well and warm for 10pm. Don’t think I don’t like you just because I told you I’m hung up on Remus. Also expect a Howler from James, he found out we had sex and chewed my ear off and he likes me, so prepare for the worst. Sorry. _ (At this point, Sirius has drawn a small sad face with his trademark messy black hair.)   
_Yours,_  
_Sirius_  
_P.S. Happy Christmas! Don’t let Alice get drunk. She’s crazy._

“Who’s it from?” she asks, letting the owl back out and watching it alight to the skies.

“Sirius,” Percy replies.

“Is this good news or bad?”

“We’re going out for New Year, so I really hope that it’s good news.”

She beams, reaching up to squeeze his hand. “Yes! I knew he had it in him to not be a twat all the time,” she cheers. “James puts a lot of pressure on the others, whether or not he knows it – I’m going to guess probably not – so they usually just fold to make things easier for themselves, but Merlin bless him, Sirius is actually sticking up for himself.”

“He did also say to expect a Howler from James,” Percy notes.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Alice twists to look at Percy. “I mean, he knows James is angry, but he’s asking you out anyway. He’s being a proper Gryffindor.”

Percy feels like he’s on a high on that thought, and with slightly twitchy hands he opens the second piece of parchment, this time from Remus. It gives Percy his blessing and support (“you know, it’s like Sirius isn’t old enough to make his own decisions,” he snorts) and asks if he’s alright, expressing Remus’s concern; Percy quickly pens a reply that he’s okay, just under a lot of pressure, and sends it via Alice’s owl. “Nice of him to ask,” Percy supposes aloud.

“You are okay, though, aren’t you?” Alice asks, concerned, though Percy is relieved from answering that question by the arrival of Frank’s letter, the contents of which he dodges asking about in favour of playing The Commodores. He’s never heard of half of the Muggle music Alice listens to, save what he catches on the wireless, and he’s not sure that he cares for much of it, either, but he likes listening to it because it reminds him so much of her. “Hey, Percy.”

He turns. She’s grinning. “Love’s such a stupid thing, isn’t it?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

* * *

Percy spends Boxing Day trying to get himself reacquainted with a broom (not that he ever was acquainted) and somehow managing not to fall off and end up needing more than a few bones mended. He thanks Merlin for family Quidditch matches at home: they give him a slight edge, so that he’s not all terrible, and though he lets Alice’s team (including her mother and a few cousins) down, he’s at least tried admirably. He’s never favoured any position, taking what he’s given, but he seems to do alright as a Chaser and even manages a clean swoop across the pitch, tossing the Quaffle right over Alice’s dad’s head and landing his only goal of the game.

Alice flies well, more experienced than him, and though she’s hardly any of Percy’s siblings (the incredible-at-Quidditch gene seems to have skipped him and him alone), he’s still impressed as they sit together on the front step, drinking hot cocoa that occasionally stirs itself so that there aren’t any chocolate dregs at the bottom. Alice offers to read his tea leaves, but Percy believes extremely firmly that Divination is bollocks, so he declines in favour of a safer drink.

He starts as he hears the crack of Apparition, looking up to see Lily and Remus arrive, neither looking quite as green as Percy feels when he Apparates (he’s been told he will, but he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to the sensation). Alice doesn’t seem to be expecting the visit either, and they form a circle around the last step, Percy recasting Warming Charms around them all wordlessly.

“Aw, fuck, Perce, how can you even do that?” Alice whines. “I’ve been trying forever, but I just can’t cast anything without – you know – actually saying it.”

“It’s just practice,” he shrugs. “I don’t know. Keep trying. I’m sure you’ll get there.”

Remus leans forward, holding a flask and twisting the cap off. “Sirius tells me you’re good at turning water into wine?” Alice laughs and Lily elbows him, but Percy is not one to turn down a challenge, especially one that could sway his reputation when it comes to Sirius. He takes the flask, eyes daring Lily to challenge him (she knows better than to interrupt a man proving his manhood), and he waves his hand in clockwise circles over the flask, focusing hard on letting the magic flow through him, even though he doesn’t really have to: it comes naturally to him, words or none, wand or none.

When he hands the flask back, it’s filled with wine. Remus takes an experimental sip and makes a face. “Fuck, that’s strong stuff. No wonder Sirius likes you.”

Lily rolls her eyes. “We just came to make sure you were okay.”

“Lily, please; though I appreciate it, I don’t need your worry. I’m alright – frail, yes, but alright. I’ve always been like this.” He tries to give her a reassuring smile, but from the look on her face, it doesn’t work. “Except for my hair. It hasn’t always been this colour.” He begins to panic: what if she can sense that there’s something wrong with him? Some wizards can feel disturbances, and he certainly wouldn’t put that past Lily Evans. Maybe she’s a Legilimens – the ability wouldn’t necessarily pass to Harry. He tries to read her face, but then he sees her eyes and feels that pang of guilt again.

She shakes her head. “Sorry, then. It’s just that you’ve been so ill, and especially considering how you were when you arrived…”

“I know. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

Alice yawns and stretches. “I vote we get more cocoa. Do you two want to come in too?”

They both nod, and Percy wonders if he really can keep this guilt to himself.

* * *

His heart is in his throat as the clock counts to ten; he’s been ready for hours, angstily pacing up and down Alice’s room to repeated playings of _Rumours_ , and he’s worried at least once an hour that he doesn’t look good enough for Sirius. He’s wearing a multicoloured dark jumper and straight black trousers (he would rather shave all his hair off and never have Sirius grip it again than wear fucking _flares_ ) with a pair of black boots laced with purple laces. Alice rolls her eyes, but smiles at him, rearranges him briefly, and assures him that he’s going to be _fine_.

“Is he going on a date, dear?” Alice’s mother asks curiously. “He looks nervous enough.”

“With Sirius Black,” Alice confirms.

“You’ve got guts, son,” her mother laughs. “Most people would keep a country mile away from him. I think we should be free to love who we want, but all these wizards are haunted by their surnames. It’s stupid, frankly.” Percy knows what she means all too well: he’s been teased mercilessly for being a Weasley for years, and he has a memory of Bill asking out a pretty Slytherin girl only to be rejected because he ‘wasn’t good enough’. “Never heard of your family, though, son. No Marshes out here.”

She’s interrupted by the sound of a roaring engine, letting out the occasionally ungainly splutter as it gets closer until it feels deafening, and then it cuts.

“That’s for you!” Alice says encouragingly, pushing Percy towards the door; he grabs his greatcoat on the way, pulling it on and casting her a last worried look as he opens the door.

Sirius is waiting by his great hulking beast of a motorbike, looking as spectacular as ever, wearing a huge studded leather jacket and biker boots. He grins. “Nice hair,” he says, swinging a leg round and back on to his motorbike.

“I’ve been meaning to dye it back,” Percy offers, but Sirius laughs, shaking his head. He looks amazing when he does, hair wild; Percy wonders when he fell for boys who looked like that, and shakes the thought off, because it doesn’t matter. He likes Sirius, he’s _with_ Sirius, and that’s what matters.

“Leave it,” Sirius says. “It looks good.” He tilts his head. “Get on.”

“Right,” Percy says a little uncertainly, but he swallows his nerves, swinging onto the seat and just behind Sirius, trying not to think about the proximity, how close they are. He leans forward and wraps his arms tight around Sirius’s waist, taking a deep breath as he revs up the bike, which feels like it’s _alive_ as it rumbles beneath Percy, Sirius kicking off.

“Hold on tight,” he advises, and Percy casts so many wordless and wandless protection charms when they take off from the ground that it’s a wonder they can see straight through the haze of magic. He’s never been so afraid in his life, not ever; somewhere from the floor of fear he’s fallen through, he can hear himself screaming into Sirius’s back and Sirius laughing, though not unkindly. He feels the squeeze of his arms around Sirius’s waist, and he resurfaces to watch the world pass by beneath them, huge and wonderful, whole cityscapes beneath their feet: it would take his breath away had the fear not already, and despite the fact he’s seized up from head to foot, he finds himself perfectly able to think it’s beautiful, to be captivated by it.

He goes a little softer against Sirius and his heart stops pounding so loud, leaving his ears. He breathes steadily, lost in the world beneath them.

They touch down in a field and Percy almost falls from the motorbike as he rushes off, throwing up in the half-sunken dirt beneath his feet. He’s never been good with heights, or with copious amounts of fear, and Sirius says nothing, leaning over to rub a hand against Percy’s back until he’s finished being sick. Percy feels like he’s been here too many times before: namely, sick, with Sirius enjoying the dulcet tones of his retching and heaving.

“That,” Percy says when the ability to speak returns to him, “was quite amazing.”

“Thanks,” Sirius replies with a raised eyebrow. “Though most people who have fun don’t then puke.”

“I’m not so good with heights,” Percy mumbles, accepting Sirius’s hand to be pulled to his feet. “Or adrenaline, really. I feel like being sick has become my main talent, besides turning various drinks into alcoholic beverages.” Sirius chuckles, linking his arm with Percy’s. “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me we’re Apparating, or I’ll turn your sweat into hornets.”

“If I kiss you when you get there, will you _not_ kill me via angry bugs?” Sirius pleads; Percy sighs, clenching his eyes shut as they snap through the atmosphere, and for the briefest of moments he wonders if he could actually Apparate forward in time, but shakes the thought away – even if he tried, he’s never been able to travel further than a country the size of France without Splinching himself. Sirius’s lips touch his the moment they arrive, fearless.

They’re standing in the middle of a Muggle city – Percy reckons London for the proximity, and it’s still decorated with Christmas lights overhead. Sirius looks comfortable in it, like he’s an organic part of the city. Few shops are open still, but Sirius seems to be able to find them effortlessly: he first takes Percy to a café with dull fluorescent lights that serves surprisingly good hot drinks for its tatty interior, paint scraping off the walls. Percy has a hot chocolate with Bailey’s and so much cream that it spills from the sides, and Sirius knocks back a few espressos. They share a slice of chocolate cake, too, sitting next to each other in a booth, legs rested against each other’s.

Sirius puts an arm around Percy. “Have you been enjoying Fleetwood Mac, then?”

“Do you need to ask?” Percy chuckles. “I _love_ Fleetwood Mac. The album is fabulous. Even Alice has set aside her fixation with The Commodores and Iggy Pop for it.”

“Blimey, you separated her from _Lust for Life_? How’d you manage that?” Sirius takes an experimental sip of Percy’s hot chocolate, but finds it too sweet and leaves it be. “I introduced her to it when it came out, and then she stole it off me and threatened to hex me six ways into Sunday if I didn’t let her have it. I imagine you know all the words to it by now?”

“Front and back,” Percy says with a smile. Sure, she’d let him play _Rumours_ for a while, but he’d been promptly forced through _Zoom_ and _Lust for Life_ far too many times each. It always makes him wonder if Neville, too, has a partiality for punk; the thought makes him feel strange, so he ignores it. “I imagine you haven’t been listening to the festive hits?”

Sirius pulls a face. “Merlin, no. Went back to Never Mind The Bollocks to celebrate the season in style – bit of The Clash, too. They’re going to be big. I can tell.” He lights a cigarette and offers some to Percy, who takes a few drags; he smirks, because Sirius has come around to smoking Rothmans and, for once, he’s enjoying a stolen smoke. Sirius looks over. “You’re a Rothmans guy, aren’t you? You never look happy smoking Alice’s. She’s been Embassy since she started.”

“They taste so much better,” he says with a soft exhale. “It doesn’t matter what the product is: if it’s a Rothmans, it’s good.”

“Are you sure it’s alright for you to smoke when you’re ill so much?”

“Honestly, I don’t care,” Percy shrugs, watching Sirius place the cigarette back into his own mouth like a kiss. “I enjoy them, and I’d rather enjoy myself and die young than live like a terrible prude and die at some terrible old age having become someone’s grumpy old neighbour.” (It’s become his nightmare, now; he reckons it’s a side effect of loving Sirius.)

“Atta boy,” Sirius says with a wide smirk, pressing a kiss to Percy’s temple. “That’s the spirit.”

“So, what were your plans for tonight? Enjoying a coffee? Having a drink? Watching the fireworks?”

“All of the above, really,” Sirius shrugs. “I used to get completely shit faced, but where’s the fun in that? I want to enjoy myself and remember that I enjoyed myself. Partying for the sake of getting blackout drunk is just stupid.” He extinguishes his cigarette in the crowded ashtray. “And, if I have sex with you, I want to remember it, because you make _such a noise_ when you come.”

Percy goes tomato red, flushed what feels like all over. “Shut up,” he says, flustered. Sirius’s grin turns to shit-eating.

“It’s cute!” he laughs. “And then you just sit there with this dazed look on your face until you come back to.” Sirius, of course, looks effortlessly cool doing anything, orgasm included; it’s as if he couldn’t embarrass himself if he tried. Not that Percy had been paying much attention at the time, his mouth wrapped around Sirius’s cock. “Alright, sorry, sorry. I just want to enjoy tonight.”

“I’m just enjoying being with you,” Percy says with a slow smile. Sirius grins back at him, taking his hand, and, as if he’s going to whisper something romantic, he rests his mouth by Percy’s ear and whispers:

“Did you know that Ronnie Kray was gay?”

* * *

Johnny Rotten is howling about the fascist regime in Percy’s left ear and Sirius is sitting cross-legged in front of him, face taut with concentration. It makes Rotten sputter and spit out now and then (Percy has honestly never heard of anything like it: summoning music, real music, into thin air), and he gently mumbles “deep breath” before lancing the needle through Percy’s nostril.

The pain is extremely sharp, and excruciating. “Fuck,” Percy hisses, and Sirius lets him swear it out as he twists a ring into the hole, casting a _tergeo_ on the tiny amount of blood that he’s drawn. “Is it – is it over?”

“Just give me a second,” Sirius assures him, using magic to snap in the captive bead ring and his hand to twist it safely inside Percy’s nose. “There we go! You want me to do the painkiller charms now?”

“No,” Percy insists. “I want to feel this.”

Sirius nods. Percy wants to feel the pain; it keeps him grounded like an anchor, keeps his thoughts from wandering, makes him focus on what’s important. “Pretty brave of you. Gryffindor for a reason, huh?”

Percy laughs. “For a while, I thought they’d sorted me into the wrong house.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re such a typical Gryffindor you came hobbling into the common room half-dead with a walking stick before you’d even been discharged from the Hospital Wing! It’s hardly a Hufflepuff thing to do.”

“I don’t know. I thought I should’ve been in Ravenclaw, because I read so much and enjoy reading and learning…”

Sirius pauses, chewing his lip. “Yeah, well, Regulus told me that the Hat tends to sort not just on values we have, but the values we respect or find important, and, if I know you like I think I do, you find bravery important, even if you don’t think you do.” He lights a cigarette. “How’s the nose?”

“How do you think?” Percy grumbles. “Sore.”

Sirius laughs. “Yeah, I thought so.” He sits down. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Are we really going to welcome the New Year while listening to the Sex Pistols?”

“Would you have it any other way?”

Percy grins. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”

He can hear a clock chime out in the distance, heralding the new year: nineteen seventy-eight, and Percy is still here, but the curses he says for that fact are dimmed by the press of Sirius’s lips to his, gently pushing him down until they’re lying in the mud like idiots with their arms around each other, grinning onto each other’s mouths. “Happy New Year,” Sirius says. “You know, I thought you were special the first time I saw you, half-dead in the mud – not everyone can survive that. I was surprised you could make it at all, you looked like such a miserable git. And for you to survive that with a healthy dose of cynicism and an ability to arse kick and a surprising lack of public moping – what the fuck else could I ever ask for in a person?”

“A charming personality and winning smile?”

“Fuck that. I want a man who knows his way around a hex – and, hey, your smile won me, so does that qualify it as a winner?”

“Stop it. You’re just lying to me now.”

“The fuck would I lie to you for?” Sirius sighs, but not angrily, running a hand through Percy’s hair and smearing it with mud. “I’ve gotten to know you and like you in Charms. You’re pretty, and you can kick ass, _and_ you can turn water into alcohol. I like talking to you. I wouldn’t lie to you like that.”

“I don’t know. Because this great person you’re talking about sounds like someone else, not me.”

 “Oh, for Merlin’s sake, shut the fuck up, you beautiful bastard.” He dips his head to kiss Percy again. “C’mon. Bike.”

“You’re leaving me already?”

“Who said anything about leaving?” He grins. “I might’ve sent a letter to Alice, and she might’ve said it was okay if I stayed the night.” Percy nods and smiles, swinging a leg over the motorbike and resting himself on Sirius’s back, hands gently falling around his waist. “Stop thinking you’re shit, or that I don’t like you, or I’ll turn your bogies into bats. I don’t hang around with people I don’t like, and I sure don’t ask them to spend the New Year with me.” He turns to press a slightly awkward kiss against Percy’s forehead, which ends up mostly lost in blue. “I’ve no idea what kind of monster you think I am, but I don’t give every other boy who wants one a handjob.”

Percy watches the city go past beneath him, and wonders what it looks like where he should be: in 1996.

* * *

He wakes up in Alice’s bed and in the crook of Sirius’s arm, recoiling as he gets the full smell of Sirius’s armpit (Percy’s romance knows no bounds). Just as Percy internally votes that he ought to move and check the time, Sirius shifts and elbows him hard in the face, his nose piercing screaming with disagreement; Percy yelps out a howl and Sirius wakes with a start, scrambling for his wand before pausing, realising he’s safe, and grinning dazedly at Percy. “Morning,” he says with a yawn, collapsing back down onto the bed so heavily it recoils back against him, bouncing thoroughly. “Sorry about the nose – mate, you really should just cast a healing spell on that. You don’t _really_ need to suffer; you’re not a punk or anything.”

Percy sighs, but smiles anyway, because nothing about waking up in Sirius’s arms (not even the stabbing pain in his nose or the furious watering of his eyes as a result) can make him anything other than happy. “Alright. You do it.” He hears Alice stir from the floor, stretching out and cracking the joints in her elbows; Sirius sits up, gently waving a hand over Percy’s face, the pain easing off as he casts a localised painkilling charm (not as if there’s any other kind) and rotates the ring in Percy’s nose, which doesn’t sting anymore. “It feels fine now. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, you crazy fuck.” Sirius presses a kiss to Percy’s top lip. “I can’t believe you even wanted to heal that without magic. You’re bloody mental.”

Percy grins. “Just trying to keep things interesting.”

“Morning,” Alice groans from the floor, scooping herself to her feet, unselfconscious that she’s only wearing a bra and a pair of joggers. She opens her wardrobe and pulls on a blouse, scruffing at her cropped hair. “You guys are the worst. You wouldn’t let me in til three – this is _my room_ , you know! Just be glad I heartily approve of your budding Romeo and Juliet romance.” She opens the curtains wordlessly and, having surprised herself, cheers. “So long as there’s no family feud, or suicides, or star crossing.”

“There might be some star crossing with a name like Sirius,” Percy teases, trying not to think too hard that they really _are_ star-crossed: 1996, 1978, and probably no room for crossover. He conceals his sigh as a yawn, wondering if fleeing Dumbledore could ever be a feasible idea.

“I’m too sober,” Sirius complains. “We should go out and get throttled. Alice?”

She leans back against a chest of drawers topped with plant pots, one of which is Percy’s cactus; he hadn’t wanted to leave it at school. What if it got lonely? He knew full well that plants didn’t get lonely, but when he’d expressed the feeling to Alice, she’d made him take it. “Fuck yeah,” she says with a grin. “I’ll send a message to Frank. You should invite Remus out.”

“I assume you’re alright with getting wasted, Percy?” Sirius asks, pulling his jumper on: it’s winter, but it has so many holes in it that it’s barely warm at all. Percy finds so much about Sirius stupidly funny.

“I’ve not had much experience with it, but I’m all for it,” he replies. Alice nods.

“Okay. We’ll make sure you don’t drink too much, then,” she says, putting an arm around him maternally and grinning. “Soon enough, I’m sure, you’ll be drinking like the rest of us and having a whale of a time while we still can. You know.” Percy nods; not that the Second Wizarding War ever seemed to have stopped many an Auror, but he knows: he can feel the tension sometimes at Hogwarts, palpably so when news floods in. Alice does her best to staunchly ignore talking about it; she said to Percy that most of the seventh years just wanted to enjoy their last year at Hogwarts as much as possible, and so most of them never make more than passing reference to the overhead war. Percy is thankful for their avoidance; he’d likely go mad otherwise.

“Of course,” Percy nods. “Best start my career in alcoholism sooner rather than later.”

“Precisely,” Sirius nods, then turns to Alice as a record sets itself on the turntable, needle pressing down as it spins, humming out the first few notes of _Art School_. Alice turns, chastising him and telling him to put on _Low_ instead; Sirius ignores her (“look,” he says, “if we’re listening to recent Bowie, it’s _Heroes_ or nothing, or we could go for a good Bowie album and listen to _Diamond Dogs_ ”). He lights one of Alice’s Embassy Envoys, hanging half out the window as he smokes it. “So, want to invite anyone else out, Alice?”

“It’s more fun when you get really smashed with small groups of people,” she shrugs. “Big groups and alcohol are only fun when you’re just getting tipsy, and everybody spills the beans.”

Sirius nods, exhaling a cloud of grey. Percy changes the record to _Heroes_ ; Alice curtly glares at him and Sirius just laughs that laugh of his that Percy doesn’t think he’ll ever fall out of love with.

They eat breakfast at a Muggle café close to Alice’s house; Percy, of course, doesn’t eat much, and Sirius and Alice eat heartily. “You should eat more,” she says, nudging him. “You’ll need a full stomach for drinking.”

“How early are you two planning on getting pissed? Lunch time?” Percy grumbles, but he eats Alice’s fried egg anyway (Sirius is not one for sharing his food), keeping his hands clamped to his coffee cup and hoping that he can somehow absorb the warmth by diffusion. He glances up as he hears the ringing of the bell by the door; Frank walks in, wearing an absurd amount of layers, and he kisses Alice’s forehead as he sits down.

“What’s the plan?” he asks, ordering a cup of tea.

“We hit up a nightclub, we drink a lot, we do something stupid that at least two of us will regret by tomorrow,” Sirius responds. Frank nods; Percy can tell that he doesn’t look absolutely thrilled by the prospect, but with his arm knotted in Alice’s, he wouldn’t be anywhere else. “Though, if we’ve got Percy along for the ride, he doesn’t even need to be drunk.”

Percy rests his head on his hand. “What makes you think I regret anything I did last night?”

The look he gets is worth it.


	5. Landslide

Percy has never before partaken in any sort of heavy drinking, never mind going to a club, and is thoroughly surprised to find that there’s a routine: his clothes are all deemed unsuitable for the punk club they’ve agreed on, so Sirius dresses him like a blue-haired skinhead and throws a wiry cardigan and a thick biker jacket on top until the Percy in the mirror seems like a stranger; further still, Alice insists that he wears makeup to the point at which he feels he starkly resembles Bellatrix Lestrange. Sirius wears black lipstick and kisses him so that he has smudges of grey on his face, and so much alcohol is passed around them (courtesy of Remus) that Percy ponders the point of going out to drink at all.

Until, of course, they start plugging _him_ with drink.

His head reels by the time he’s in the club, a live band screeching and attacking their guitars with anarchic vigour, painfully amplified through speakers as the crowd surges for them. When he’s offered a drink, he takes it, and it’s not a surprise he’s blackout so quickly, a mess of slurred consonants, frantic laughing, and bouts of sudden doleful misery that ramp into careening highs; he thanks Merlin, drunk though he may be, for Frank, who’s just close enough to sober to hold them all together like glue.

Percy doesn’t remember leaving the club, but instead a haze of images hover uncomfortably in his memory: somewhere dark, gloomy, rain-trodden alleys; a fervent buzzing at the back of his head in somewhere that isn’t quite sterile; shots of pain lancing through him mixed with howls of amusement; Sirius’s lips kissing around his stomach; Alice leaving a trail of smashed bottles, in awe of the night light that reflects from their surfaces.

All in all, he’s not sure whether or not to call it enjoyment, but it’s an _experience_ – and one he’s already forgotten, ironically enough.

* * *

There is a spell for curing hangovers, and Frank, so minimally affected he even wakes up early enough to make himself a nice cup of tea, is in charge of casting them; to Percy, it feels like someone’s drained the illness out of him (the time travel sickness will, as ever, be back; the hangover, however, will not). It doesn’t work entirely, not for extreme drinking, and Percy feels like he might be developing a cold as he shrugs off Sirius’s T-shirt.

Alice resets the record, and nobody complains (they can, peculiarly enough, all agree on their enjoyment of _Heroes_ ). She does the hot drinks and toast round, too, accompanied by Frank, as Percy, Sirius, and Remus open the curtains and tidy Alice’s room, trying to theorise what on Earth happened the night before between them.

Percy’s upper arm stings, covered by the shirt he’s put on it, and when he makes passing reference to this, Sirius turns. “Wait. Where’s the pain? Let’s have a look.”

Percy obliges, undoing enough buttons to shrug his arm out, and he goes pale: never in his life had he ever expected to have one, and yet here he is, arm bearing a tattoo – and, better yet, one that glows a steady orange. Sirius inhales sharply, running a thumb over it. “Christ, Percy. You’ve done it. You’ve got a drunk tattoo.”

Percy groans loudly. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why me?” He looks at it, closer, trying to make out what the series of dots means; like a flash, it comes to him: it’s a constellation, and not just any constellation – it’s Canis Major. He shuts his eyes; what are the chances he’s going to regret this at some point in his life? Though he supposes it’ll make sure he never forgets this, never forgets the life he’s living in the seventies, the fun he’s had and the people he’s met.

But his mother is going to kill him if she ever sees it. She would probably faint just at the sight of him like this.

“Any idea what the magic in that is about?” Sirius asks, folding his arms. Percy shakes his head; he can feel it, the energy that seems to be swirling and concentrating in his arm, but that doesn’t mean he knows what it _does_ or what it _means_. The glow doesn’t seem to be fading at all, bright in colour. “Ah well. Congratulations: you’ve popped your clubbing cherry in glorious style.” He leans forward and brushes his lips to Percy’s cheek, stroking his hair messily. “I’m proud.”

“Of what? My being stupid?”

“Exactly.”

Percy lights up when he catches a glint of metal on his chest: hesitantly, he looks down, and tries his best to hold in a sigh when he sees that both of his nipples have a straight bar through them; discreetly, he does his buttons back up. Despite it all, he feels a glow of pride. He feels like he’s living, like he’s no longer suppressing himself–

He feels like he’s _free_.

They eat breakfast on the floor on painted China plates, various forms of toast, some slathered with jam and some sandwiched with inordinate amounts of melted cheese. Percy and Frank share a huge cup of tea, and Frank leans in to him, resting on his shoulder, tucked under a thick jumper (Neville definitely gets his taste in clothes from his father, Percy reckons). “I’ve been reading a book over the Christmas break,” he says. “ _Portnoy’s Complaint_ , Philip Roth. It’s very disgusting, but very funny – you ought to give it a read sometime, if you don’t mind copious amounts of masturbation...”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Sirius quips from across the room; Percy starts, astonished he could hear the conversation from the distance between them, and raises his middle finger thoughtlessly, Sirius poking his tongue out in response.

“Most literary works are just authors wanking themselves off anyway,” Percy mumbles, earning a laugh from Frank and from Remus, too.

They spend most of the rest of their slightly ill morning playing Monopoly, and though for the most part they abide by the rules, Remus and Sirius form a deadly team as the two players with the highest sums of money and begin to buy up the entire board, forcing Percy, Alice, and Frank to frantically buy every property they land on and almost bankrupt themselves multiple times over, until Percy nabs the free parking and rolls in his thousands of Monopoly dollars for a while, at which point someone starts stealing from the bank and they’re struggling to give each other enough money without swapping notes; eventually, they assign Percy to keep watch over the bank, and he’s a ruthless banker, hitting Sirius with a Bat-Bogey Hex for trying to magically smuggle out a five hundred dollar bill.

“Was that strictly necessary?” Remus asks as Percy counters the spell.

“That was totally necessary!” Alice argues. “He was about to take a _five hundred_. I don’t even _have_ a five hundred dollar bill anymore, I’m so bloody poor. I’m about ready to have to mortgage Old Kent Road.”

“A tragedy,” Frank nods, patting Alice’s shoulder. “As long as this means that I get to manage the finances once we’re married.”

“I wasn’t going to argue with you on that front,” she laughs. “You’re the smart one of us.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, love,” Frank replies, rubbing her back. “Maybe we should just play Scrabble instead, before you two turn into vicious billionaires,” and it’s a good idea, so they do; it’s much less competitive and replaced mostly with aggravated whines that they suddenly can’t think of any words, despite the fact that none of them are particularly stupid in any way whatsoever.

After a while, it’s hit lunchtime, so Frank, Alice, and Percy leave the house to bring back whatever food they feel like (Sirius, much like he smokes anything, will eat anything, though likely while thoroughly complaining about it, and Remus will do the same but without the complaints). Alice lives in a nice suburb full of cafés and though they’re split between chips and toasties, they decide to go for cheese toasties, and a ham and cheese for Sirius, taking away a few hot chocolates and coffees here and there, too.

“It’s nice having everyone here,” Percy notes, sipping and scalding his tongue; he tries not to pull a face, but he feels himself doing it anyway. “And playing games is fun, too. I feel like everything is normal.” Alice nods and grins.

“Spending time with friends is always the best,” she agrees. “Even Frank thinks so, and Frank is practically married to the exams.”

“What do you mean _practically_?” Frank laughs.

When they get home, they’re in a bubble of enjoyable laughter and that haze of warm friendship, and as Frank and Alice grab plates and cutlery, Percy heads upstairs, gently opening the door.

His breath catches when he sees Sirius and Remus, pulled into each other, dancing with arms intertwined so heavily they might as well be one person and swaying to The Commodores’s _Easy_. And, he notices with a sharp and ugly twinge in his chest, their lips are uncomfortably close, and that’s when he has to step out and slam the door behind him. Percy doesn’t know the decade well, and so it’s terribly risky when he turns and Apparates out into freezing cold of Devon, without even a jacket for company.

 He can’t go too near, he thinks, but he hovers. The Burrow seems smaller than he remembers, and it floods with light. The part of him that exists that insists on self-preservation casts charms to keep him warm, though a lot of him wants it to be cold: he wants to strip off naked and run and feel the frostbite snatch at his skin and wants to be found covered in ice like an art piece, but everything about that is infinitely stupid, so he shoves his hands into his pocket and watches the chimney in the distance belch smoke. He wants to go home. He wants Bill to put an arm around him and commiserate with him – now, after all, would be a great time to discover the joy of drinking Firewhisky with a real connoisseur of it.

Swallowing the thoughts, he makes the unconscious choice to Apparate to Diagon Alley, and despite the fact that it’s winter and very empty, he goes to Fortescue’s. It seems stupid to go to an ice cream shop when it’s cold, but plenty people don’t seem to mind, and Percy easily squeezes in, ordering the largest sundae he can find on the menu and tucking in; _those toasties can get fucked_ , he thinks, chocolate sauce drizzling from the end of his spoon.

He can hear (and feel) the door open, and a part of him just knows that it’s for him even before Frank slides in next to him, ordering two scoops of vanilla with strawberry sauce. “Hi,” Frank says, as if he’s not sure what to say. “You alright?”

“I can’t believe he’d do that to me,” Percy says, “but I have this sundae right now, so I suppose that’s better than nothing. It’s very nice.”

Frank chuckles breathily. “The sundaes here are the best, and I’ve been to Italy before. Not that we were there for long, of course – my mother kicks up such a fuss, everywhere she goes; I love her, but she’s very strong-willed...” He spoons a mouthful of ice cream. “The pizza was good, too. Maybe we should all take a holiday together after Hogwarts – one last hurrah before we join the Order...”

“I’d love to see the Pantheon,” Percy nods. “Or the Basilicas. But...” He leaves the sentence hanging and finishes instead his sundae, pushing it away from him with a soft grunt, having definitely overextended himself.

“You want to see them with Sirius.”

“Yes.” Percy’s first thought was that he might not still be around for his second Hogwarts graduation, but it occurs to him as Frank says it that he’s right, too, and the look of gentle concern that Frank gives him reminds him so much of Neville in that moment that Percy feels he might be sick. “He probably has a lot of things to say to me, but... I’m not sure I can hear them.”

“Well, we can always see what happens after we’re back at Hogwarts.” Frank flags Fortescue and pays for both their food; rather impressed by Percy’s hair, they get a free two scoops to share between each other, and they eat as they wander down Diagon Alley, Frank handing Percy his coat back. They Apparate out of Diagon Alley and make their way through one of Frank’s favourite day trips: the book circuit of London.

Mass-market and commercialised book chains are not what Frank goes for: he shops in musty bookshops that smell like they’ve been there forever, spines cracking between his fingers and layers of dust floating from the covers as he detaches the book from its place within the shelf, forcing it out from where it’s assimilated with the others. Books come from floor to ceiling, ladders dotted around to reach the top shelves, and some shelves even form doorways, through which Percy steps across the musty red carpet.

He forgets about Sirius and the future when he’s browsing: all he cares about is the book and the blurb and the noise of the pages flicking and the smell of old book, and by the time he and Frank get back to Alice’s house with two bags’ worth of books, he feels calmer already, spending the evening curled up and reading Tennessee Williams.

When he goes to bed, which is on the sofa because Alice has reclaimed her own bedroom (now with the addition of Frank), he notices that the glow emanating from the tattoo on his upper arm is gone, and he reaches up, letting his fingers graze over it. Sirius has gone, and he feels cold.

* * *

It’s the day before they go back to Hogwarts, and Percy has spent the whole day writing a long and extremely boring essay for History of Magic when he hears a distinctive pop behind him; he ignores it, assuming it’s Frank, who’s leaving with them the next day. He begins to get a feeling that there’s something off when he doesn’t hear Frank move, or say hello, and he turns around, blue curls attaching themselves to the side of his cheek as he faces James Potter.

This is a meeting he never thought he’d have, that’s for sure.

“If Alice sees you, she’ll turn you into a rat,” he says without inflection, turning back to his essay and wondering if anything he’s written is actually English, because it doesn’t look like it anymore.

“Listen,” he says, running a hand through his messy hair; Percy sees where Harry gets it from. “I know I’ve been a dick to you in the past, and I’m really sorry. I thought you were a poncy twat, and maybe you still are, I don’t know, but look – Sirius is really upset, and he really likes you, and he just wants to talk to you...”

“Oh, is he upset? Did he catch me trying to kiss someone I was hung up on? No? Then he can bugger off,” Percy replies sarcastically, trying to ignore the twitch of his facial muscles into an angered frown. _This is not who he is_.

“It wasn’t like that! They were just messing around – we all do it all the time, you know that.” James, feeling more brazen and less like he wants to see the back of Percy’s head, pulls up a seat next to him, pushing the parchment away so that Percy is forced to have to look up at him, though of course, Percy doesn’t. “He _really_ likes you – it’s probably not obvious, because he’s well-practised at being a tosspot, but he’s really torn up by this and by not being with you. He keeps moping. He _never_ mopes.” James leans forward, eyes pleading, and clasps a hand over Percy’s. “We can set our differences aside, can’t we? For Sirius, anyway. I’ve still not determined whether or not you are a poncy twat.”

“I _am_ a poncy twat,” Percy replies, pulling his hand away like it’s been set on fire. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow, but don’t expect miracles and fireworks.”

“Shit,” says James. “I’ll tell Sirius not to bring them, then.”

Percy begins to laugh, and that’s when the two of them know that it’s going to be alright.


	6. The Times They Are A-Changin'

The months begin to become a blur, and the days count down until Percy is going home. He’s given a date: one of the days following the end of the exams, but preceding the leavers’ ball and graduation. He’s glad for that, he supposes, because if he had to dance with Sirius in a suit, being able to leave might become an impossible thing, and it’s hard enough as it is. He tries to devise ways to drop hints into conversations – for Frank and Alice, about where they’re going to live, what they’re going to do after Hogwarts, but he can’t stop them from being dead set on becoming Aurors, and Sirius doesn’t seem to think there’s anything untrustworthy about Pettigrew and, as it goes, if Percy didn’t know, he wouldn’t either.

It takes him a while to really get over his feeling of betrayal from Sirius, but it’s not difficult to fall back into spending time with him: James finally lets up on tormenting Percy, likely taking his cue from Percy’s ability to admit his own failings, and often they meet as a collective, either outside, or at meal times, or in the common room.

When they get back from Christmas break, Sirius has a record player with him, apparently a present sneakily gifted to him by his brother, and he sets it up in the common room; Percy and Remus collaborate and come up with a rota for people to play music, and though they initially dread having to share, it’s quickly a source of bonding between Percy and the other seventh years he might not have known so well, as well as the Marauders: he spends a particularly good night dancing with Sirius to _Wish You Were Here_.

It’s been a long day, and he’s had about a thousand and one homework assignments due in, and the fact that it’s over is a blessing; he doesn’t even pause to ask Sirius if he’d like to dance, just whisks him off his feet and sways against him, Sirius smiling into his neck. Percy wonders if he’ll ever have nights like these again, once he returns to his own time: lying on the sofa, listening to music, lazily discussing his day with either Alice and Frank or Sirius, watching the gentle pulsing of the glow in his arm. It’ll never be like this again, and the thought hits him like a blow.

“Sirius,” he says.

“Yes?”

“Er, I’m not sure, actually. Just... this is nice.”

Sirius quirks an eyebrow and laughs. “It is.”

It becomes so commonplace to have someone playing music in the Gryffindor common room that the rota collapses completely, and yet few arguments break out, because people seem to take their turn anyway; the favourites include albums by The Who, Queen, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, and Pink Floyd. Percy begins to feel really at home, then – he’s almost afraid of going home, because he’s not sure he’ll ever feel as comfortable there as he does in 1978, and it plays uncomfortably on his mind every day, culminating in a particularly violent rebound of his time travel sickness that saddles him back in the Hospital Wing.

He’s so ill he lapses back into the way he was before he arrived: he finishes all his homework and _demands_ the teachers send him his coursework so that he can get on with it, and every time he finds himself vomiting anything becomes immediately repulsed and cleans it away, sparing no moments to dip his fingers in his mouth and stare when they come out red. He makes his way through the books he bought with Frank, and drinks and eats at regular intervals, and doesn’t smoke despite how twitchy it makes him.

He keeps himself neat, too – he’s allowed out every now and then because he insists on having a shower, and he takes his little cactus with him, leaving it on the windowsill where it receives as much light as possible. He talks intellectually when Alice and Frank visit, talking about the books he’s been reading as if he exists on a fucking _pedestal_ , and that’s when Sirius arrives.

“Christ,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “What happened to you?” He glances up, ensuring that Madam Pomfrey can’t see him, and lights up. “Out of the common room for two minutes, and you look like you’re going to deliver a lecture on cauldron bottoms.”

“Cauldron bottoms are important,” Percy says snippily.

“If you don’t start acting like your usual self, I’m going to start singing the Sex Pistols right now.”

“This _is_ my usual self.” Percy leans back against the headboard, running a hand through his hair and snapping off some blue strands. “Oh, Sirius, I don’t know what I’m playing at. I’m not an anarchist, I don’t have blue hair, I don’t have piercings. I pretend I know better than everyone else, I love studying, and I just want to boss everyone around while delivering lectures on cauldron bottoms and enjoying every second of it, because that’s who I am, and I ought to stop lying to myself.”

Sirius looks at him for a moment, level. “Percy, love, the whole time I’ve known you, you’ve both loved homework and reading and yet been cool and enjoyed the moments in life and been a vicious banker. And that’s who you are. You’re not bloody _lying_ to anyone, and the only way you’re lying to yourself is by telling yourself that you don’t deserve to be here, so shut the fuck up, have a drag, and be you.”

He leans forward and kisses Percy, then lets him take a drag before Madam Pomfrey detects the smoke like some kind of bloodhound and forces him to stub it out. Percy is allowed to shuffle back to the Gryffindor common room, leaning on Sirius’s shoulder, and spends the night until curfew leaning on Sirius’s shoulder and thinking about everything he’s said until he has to go shuffling back.

“Alice’s mum is sending us over a couple of records,” Sirius says as they reach the Hospital Wing. “Bob Dylan. She thinks you’ll like them.”

“Never as much as I love Fleetwood Mac,” Percy replies.

“Yeah, I’d hate to ever separate you from one of those records.” Sirius kisses his forehead. “Now, you stop worrying about who you are, and just get on with this shit, right?”

“Right.”

“ _Right_.”

* * *

This is probably the first time that Percy hasn’t wanted to strangle Dumbledore or scratch the arms off of the chair in his office, and for once, he isn’t even sitting, instead squinting into the bookcases and wondering if it’s safe to have such restricted books on show in his office like this. Dumbledore watches him with an eye of curiosity, or maybe fascination; Percy can’t quite tell.

“You asked to see me this time, Mr Weasley. Was there something you wished you discuss with me?” he asks.

“I was wondering what would happen if I warned anyone about their futures,” Percy says, straightening up and turning to Dumbledore, fidgeting with his hands – if Dumbledore doesn’t like the idea, then he could potentially just have fucked himself over, but he has no-one to consult this with save for Dumbledore, so he has to swallow his fear and take the plunge. “I’m not sure I can stand by knowing what happens to some of them.”

Dumbledore smiles, wryly. “You are free to do what you see fit, Mr Weasley. Just know that the future you return to will be a new one, and that I would much appreciate it if you leave any of my business alone.”

“There wasn’t anything I wanted to change about your timeline,” Percy says, and coughs into his handkerchief, which is stained red; though he’s been formally discharged from the Hospital Wing, he’s still enjoying a period of decline. He wonders if he’ll even be around to go back, at this rate.

Dumbledore seems to pick up on his thoughts. “I imagine you might be worried about your health – I have been assured that it is very likely a result of your sudden time-travelling experience, and you should return to your own time in good health, though perhaps the journey will not be so pleasant for you.” He turns, striding to his desk. “I believe, Mr Weasley, that if you continue to live life following an Epicurean philosophy, you will find yourself in a strong position for returning to what is your present and their future.”

“What happens to our memories?” Percy asks, scratching at his arm uncertainly.

“That, I’m afraid I do not know, and is something you will have to find out for yourself.”

For the first time in a long time, Percy isn’t angry when he leaves Dumbledore’s office, nor does he want to cry; he hurries down the steps, and along the corridor, keen not to miss dinner.

* * *

It’s April. Percy is sitting out by the Lake with Alice and Frank, one hand holding open his copy of _The Family Arsenal_ while the other brings the pieces of his chocolate Easter egg to his mouth, and because Sirius taught her how to, Alice is playing _Joe The Lion_ as she pores over _The Amityville Horror_ , Frank’s head rested in her lap. It’s become their usual reprieve for revision, for the hour or two they take out of their busy schedules; the Marauders usually simultaneously cause some kind of chaos, but the trio prefer some calm in their stormy lives.

But today is different – Percy has felt it, palpably _sensed_ the trouble in the air over the past few days, and it comes to an uncomfortable head in a duel between James and a Slytherin he’s bellowing at for being some kind of Voldemort-loving traitor; he tenses, but Alice puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Leave it,” she says, tensely. “Duels like this get hairy.”

“What’s it about?” Percy asks, sitting up a little further.

“They’re suspected of being about to leave Hogwarts to join the Death Eaters,” Frank says quietly, watching James fire off curse after curse as easily as breathing, the Slytherin girl hurrying to keep up but maintaining what Percy can tell is a strong defensive approach. “If you try and get in the way, he’ll probably just try and take you down, too. He takes these things personally.”

“And do you?” asks Percy. Frank bites his lip, folding and unfolding the corner of the page he’s reading.

“It’s hard not to feel affected when you know that you might be facing them across a battlefield in a year’s time,” he says finally, and because Percy can tell how uncomfortable he feels, he decides to let it go. Best not to ask, he thinks, and best not to dwell on the thoughts of the war. “And maybe you ought to leave Sirius alone after this. Tensions run high on days like these.”

“McGonagall’s here,” Alice notes, and Percy watches the younger version of the Transfiguration teacher yet again come storming across the yard, breaking up the duel almost effortlessly. “Look how fast they put their wands down! She’s amazing.”

Percy eats his dinner that evening with Lily Evans, who’s steadfastly devouring a baked potato; he pokes at his own food, favouring drinking his orange juice than consuming anything of substance. “I can’t believe he got in that duel,” she’s saying to him, not looking particularly pleased about it. “It’s such a stupid move. What if he gets targeted?”

“He’ll be fine,” Percy says, and turns his fork over and over until the Hufflepuff boy who’s sitting next to him whose name somehow always seems to evade Percy’s mind despite the fact that they’re almost always at the same table at meal times points this out, and he stops.

“You okay?” asks the boy. Percy wishes he could remember his name.

“I’m just tired,” Percy says with a false smile, and the boy nods.

* * *

Someone is playing an old collection of fifties records in the common room, and Percy is hunched over a desk, gently pencilling an illustration of a human transfiguring into a sea urchin onto a piece of parchment for his Transfiguration dissertation. It’s not what he did for his original dissertation (a study into Animagi), but he’s keeping himself on his intellectual toes.

“Hey.” Sirius slides into the seat next to him, slinging an arm over Percy and spending a moment admiring him work; he’s barely an artist, really, but he’s precise enough. Sirius has seen worse (namely: one James Potter). “You coming to play poker?”

“No,” Percy replies. “I’m busy working – I’ll have time for a game of Exploding Snap before bed, I think, but nothing else.”

“I’ll play you,” Sirius says gamely, but with a grin. “By the way, I _know_ you want to work on your dissertations and homework, but will you at least come out for a Butterbeer with me at the weekend?” He attempts to give Percy puppy eyes, and they fail dismally; Percy laughs and elbows him.

“Of course,” he says. “Just for a little while, mind you. I’ve not got much time to spare.”

He has more time to spare when it comes to the day, of course: he works overtime to make sure he’s on top of everything, leaving him almost with a clean slate of work by the time the Hogsmeade weekend comes around so that he doesn’t have to feel a new layer of guilt in being a bad new student. Alice, who has been working on the spell to dye hair and promptly turned Frank’s an entire rainbow before back to black, dyes his a little darker blue for the occasion. He wears one of Sirius’s Sex Pistols T-shirts, the _God Save the Queen_ cover, and thinks with a smile that if any of his siblings were to see him now, they wouldn’t believe their own eyes.

Time seems to pass both more slowly and more quickly in the nineteen seventies; but, no matter which, Percy feels renewed.

The war is at a height of tension, and though the Hogwarts grounds have since boiled over, Hogsmeade has not yet received the same. Percy keeps his hand near his wand on the walk there, and he can see that though the other Marauders don’t, their hands twitch at every sound; Frank and Alice walk behind him, talking to Lily and Marlene and the Hufflepuff boy. He stays astride with Sirius, discussing how weary their classes are becoming and how excited they are to finally graduate – and yet how too they’ll miss Hogwarts (Percy knows this feeling firsthand). Sirius promises Percy that, once they’ve graduated, they can ride around the London rooftops together; Percy likes this idea, though he knows it’s never going to see fruition.

Their conversation is interrupted by what Percy recognises immediately as a dark curse, and he grabs the back of Sirius’s jacket, yanking him to the floor. “Fuck!” Sirius yelps, rolling to avoid another curse as Percy leaps up and throws a _stupefy_ that their assailant barely has time to block. “Who the hell is it? Is it fucking Death Eaters?”

“One, more like,” Frank retorts, glancing out from the rock he and Alice are perched in front of, their perfect cover. “If we all go for a synchronised assault, he’ll go down like a pile of rocks. Next time he casts something, we get him.” Percy can see that he’s praying, muttering desperately under his breath; Alice is clinging to his hand, and for a moment that lasts far too long, Percy feels like he’s drowning, and then his vision washes with green and he leaps to his feet, whipping his arm out.

So many students cast hexes, jinxes, and curses in that moment that even Voldemort himself would struggle; the lone Death Eater doesn’t stand a chance, flying across the town like a rag doll as his body twists and contorts itself into that of what is unmistakably some sort of sea creature; Percy grins, though no more time is afforded to his relaxation as an _expelliarmus_ is shot over his head. Lily takes this attacker down with a _petrificus totalus_ that hits its mark perfectly, having not been noticed until too late.

“Merlin,” James mutters, eyes sweeping as much of the town as he can see. “I just wanted a butterbeer.”

“I could use ten after this,” Remus grumbles from next to him; none of them stand, all awaiting another fizzle of magic that never comes. McGonagall delivers the word that they’re safe and performed exceedingly well; she places a hand on Percy’s shoulder and squeezes.

“I think you’ve rather proved the effectiveness of your dissertation, Mr Marsh,” she says; the breath he lets out is so long he thinks he might choke on it. He grins at her, knowing too well that she thinks he has just too much of a mischievous out-of-class streak for her liking, and hurries off after Sirius.

They down butterbeer after butterbeer, and Percy feels a little woozy to finish his homework, making it a good thing he’s done it all already. James is talking like he’ll never stop.

“You know, Percy, I thought you were just a poncy arsewipe, but that was a pretty good little spell back there,” he says, putting an arm around Percy’s shoulders; Percy wants to shrink into himself and fold a thousand times like a piece of origami (he doesn’t know the spell for that). He’s never been James’s biggest fan, exactly. “So here you have it: my big, fat seal of approval. Signed and stamped: James Potter.”

“Finally,” says Percy, voice dripping with cynicism like acid. “Of course, I’d hinged all my self-confidence and willingness to date Sirius on you.”

James guffaws. “You better marry this kid when it’s legal, Sirius; he’s a keeper.”

Percy can’t help but not even feel bloody well _pleased_ that he’s finally garnered James’s acceptance – because it’s almost too late for it, now. The exams steal his time away, and before he knows what’s happening, he’s going to have to leave; he smiles weakly, knuckles whitening where he grips his glass. Why do things never go his way?

But he’s fallen in love with Sirius, and even if the world falls apart around him, he knows that one thing has gone in his favour, and that one person has loved him back.


	7. Patch It Up

The exams are over, and Percy is having the time of his life: now with no classes to attend and plenty of time to kill until his graduation and the eventual prom, he has nothing to do but lounge in the common room listening to everybody’s records and read his way through his, Alice, _and_ Frank’s reading lists, as well as recommendations from Pince, who he’s somehow managed to win over completely in this time (though not so much in his own; he’s since learned that Pince’s feelings towards students always seem to be groundless and based on internal immediate judgment).

He’s also taken to wearing Sirius’s clothes as often as his own, and when he’s called to Dumbledore’s office, he’s wearing an oversized yellow _Never Mind the Bollocks_ hoodie and a pair of black leather trousers – hardly the attire he’d wear before, but there’s something endearing about being comfortable and being able to pull the neck above his head and inhale that familiar Sirius smell.

He pauses on the stairs, overwhelmed for a moment by the fact that this is _it_. It with capital letters. It in a big font with a glow. He swallows.

“Ah, Mr Weasley.” Dumbledore smiles sympathetically at him; Percy would rather not have anyone’s sympathy, considering no-one really knows what it feels like – _he’s_ not even sure he knows what this feels like. It’s hard to put his feelings into words. “I assume you might not want a sweet.”

“Not right now, sir,” he says, hands behind his back as he fidgets.

“I assume you also know why you are here?”

“It’s time to send me back, sir?”

“Quite.” Dumbledore paces towards his desk, leaning his hands on the back of his chair. “You can have time to say your goodbyes now, if you wish. I understand you have made quite a connection with several other students, particularly Mr Black – now, I must warn you now, though we are sure that this _will_ return you to your time, we don’t know of the physical or mental effects, so if you wish to remain within this timeline...”

“No,” Percy says, shaking his head. “I’ve got to go back.” He knows: he loves Sirius, and he loves Alice and Frank, and he loves spending time with everyone, but he can’t stay – they have to get on with their own lives, and he with his, and he misses his family so much the ache is almost physical. He can’t fuck with time; it’s a lesson well-taught. “But I’m going to go and speak to everyone first.”

“As long as you’re back before the end of the day, Mr Weasley. Running away will do you no favours.”

He does, however, run back to the common room, ignoring whatever teacher belts out a warning at him for running in the corridors (he can do whatever he damn well _wants_ ). Sirius is where he was before, smoking thoroughly while playing Exploding Snap with Alice; he looks up instinctively, watching Percy cross the room in a matter of sheer moments, snapping upright as he senses the desperation in Percy’s eyes.

“Shit – what’s up?” he asks.

“I have something very, very important that I have to tell you,” he says, trying to sound as grave as possible even though he’s feeling such a stir of emotions in his gut that he might spontaneously combust. “Can you get Frank, Alice? We need to do this somewhere private, just the three of us.”

Alice nods, and neither of them speak except to find a location (a small nook in one of the lesser-travelled corridors), instead casting wary glances that Percy can see out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t know what to say. How do you tell the people you’ve spent almost a year with that you aren’t who you say you are, and tell them something that sounds completely outrageous?

“You trust me, don’t you?” he asks Alice as they settle into the cranny, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and borrowing Sirius’s light.

“Of course I do,” she says, clutching his arm. “Percy...”

He tells them: it comes out in a rush, verbal diarrhoea; he can’t contain the guilt anymore, the pain of having maintained a lie for a good year. He never wanted to deceive anybody, and here he is, built upon a stack of lies and mistruths and _my name is Percy Marsh_. Sirius’s smoking rate accelerates dangerously, until Percy worries he might develop sudden and immediate lung cancer, but Alice and Frank maintain perfect poker faces; whatever they’re thinking, he can’t tell, and he worries – maybe they think he’s a liar, and what can he do to reassure them? Tell them that they all suffer miserable fates, that Frank and Alice are insane and that Sirius spends twelve years of his life in Azkaban and many more hating Remus and blaming him for something he never did?

“You don’t have to have an answer to me, or believe me, or anything,” Percy says awkwardly, trying and failing to make eye contact with either of them. “I just – Sirius, you have to avoid Peter. He’s not trustworthy; Alice, Frank, after you give birth, the two of you need to leave the country, because it’s not safe for either of you.” He makes to stand up, but Sirius reaches forward and grabs his arm.

“You can’t just leave after that!” he says sharply. “You’re going to be gone – for how many years? Until 1996? What the fuck, Percy – what about us?”

“It doesn’t change my feelings for you,” Percy insists, running a hand through his hair, wishing that this wasn’t happening and that he could just continue in domestic bliss. Magic hasn’t always treated him well. “I just have to leave. It’s hardly my choice.”

Alice leans back. “He’s right, Sirius. Let him go. Don’t give him shit – do you think he’d go if he didn’t have to?”

“Right,” Sirius says, tensely. “Well, fine. But if you’re going to leave, then there’s something I gotta do first.” Percy nods and takes Sirius’s proffered hand, following him along and watching with no sense of surprise as the doors to the Room of Requirement form in the wall; it’s nothing eloquent, really, just a bare room with a record player and David Bowie’s _Hunky Dory_.

Percy is no dancer, and neither is Sirius, and neither of them know what dance is best suited to _Oh! You Pretty Things_ , but it’s the song Percy wants to listen to, and comfortably, he sways against Sirius, listening to the thrum of his heartbeat and feeling the warmth of him beneath his mohair jumper, steady, solid, reassuring.

“So,” Sirius murmurs into Percy’s shoulder; Percy wishes he could reach into Sirius’s soul to caress and comfort it. “Is this it?”

“Just for another eighteen years – well, less; I left in January…” Sirius pushes him away so that Percy can perform a surprisingly competent spin; they have to stop swaying now, because _fuck_ , they’ve picked too good a tune not to dance and laugh to each other over. “I’ll be back. Looking like this, so please, for the love of Merlin, don’t flirt with me beforehand; he’ll freak out. If you figure out who I am.”

Sirius is quiet for a long moment. “What am I like? Can you tell me, or will that create some kind of paradox that’ll turn my mind to mush?”

“Still hot,” Percy smiles. “A little more mellow, but I think everyone calms down with age, and your hair is _fantastic_ , and my brothers think you’re just the shit, and…” He stops before he chokes, and cups his hands at the back of Sirius’s neck to kiss him, sweetly and tenderly but not too hard, else he’ll never manage to let go. “I should go.”

Sirius looks like he wants to plead, but he takes Percy’s kiss on the forehead with silent resignation. “I can’t wait to see you again,” he says finally, as Percy pushes through the doors. He doesn’t have it in him to say goodbye to Alice and Frank, and he takes the shortest route he knows to Dumbledore’s office, the tears burning his eyes. He can’t believe it’s over.

Everyone now has to suffer, while he surfboards away.

Dumbledore offers him no words, which is just as well, because there is fucking _nothing_ that Percy wants to hear in that moment as he chugs back whatever strange concoction is going to take him home.

He doesn’t even have time to bid 1978 its farewell before he’s ripped from its surface.

* * *

It’s a bumpy landing, mostly because he comes tumbling down through the chimney and out the fireplace, covered in soot and old Floo remnants. He feels like complete and utter shit, pain lancing and arcing through him like lightning bolts as he scrambles for purchase he won’t receive on the floorboards, letting out a horrible guttural scream of pain as he brings up what feels like an internal organ but is just a tiny puddle of blood.

 _Fuck time travel_ , he thinks as he collapses in it; the pain passed with the experience, and he suddenly feels tranquil within himself, like his body doesn’t want to tear itself up so much.

There are loud voices and footsteps approaching him. He recognises the floorboards, miserable and still a tad musty-looking despite the intensive cleaning, as those of 12 Grimmauld Place, and he throws himself up from the floor, locking eyes immediately with a startled-looking Fred and knocking him over with a hug; Fred doesn’t know what’s just hit him until he hears the voice in his ear, dripping the last blood of his illness. “I’m so happy to see you, Fred; oh, Flaubert, I love you so much…”

He doesn’t want to let go, but the repeated proclamations of confusion necessitate it, and he steps back; his family stare at him with confused bewilderment until he catches his mother’s eye and, with a mixture of anger, confusion, and relief, she exclaims “Percival Ignatius Weasley, what on Merlin’s green Earth?”, pulling him onto a chair at the table and immediately setting Ron to make him a cup of tea. She explains helpfully to his confused expression that he’s been gone for an hour following the failed experiment, and, because he can tell she’s horrified by everything about him, he explains to everyone in the room what happened and where he really went, his mother glaring at Fred and George when they decide they’re the greatest wizards of all time; she puts an arm around Percy, hugging him close, and he can almost feel her refraining from making a comment on his new look, though her sympathy, he knows, is true nonetheless.

And just when he thinks his heart might be able to settle down, Sirius walks in.

He knocks his own chair over in his keenness; Sirius grins with a feeling in his eyes that’s wonderfully indescribable, and he puts his hands on Percy’s cheeks, kissing him deeply in the way they never did before he left, and Percy can feel every minute and every hour of that time they’ve been apart like a mallet blow. He doesn’t give a shit about being seen – not about one of the twins’ impressive wolf whistle, not about what his mother thinks, not about what Harry thinks (he has no say in his godfather’s affairs, anyway).

When they eventually break apart, Percy keeps his arms around Sirius anyway, beaming at him, only to be disentangled by his mother; he should’ve known that he wouldn’t get away for long. “I don’t know which one of you is worse – _Sirius Black_ , you are far too old for him, and Percy, I thought you had more decency than that! First you come trotting in here with those appalling clothes and that _hair_ and those _piercings_ , and now–”

“Molly,” Remus says, trading a look with Percy as he rescues the poor boy, “there are perfectly good explanations for many of these things, and beside which, Percy is allowed to dress in any which way he wants. Now, as he’s just returned from almost two decades ago, so I think he deserves a break, don’t you?”

Percy is sipping at his tea, trying to ignore Ron’s completely gobsmacked and horrified expression. “I could use a cigarette,” he says. “I haven’t had one in – what, eighteen years?”

The wiry grin is all the proof that Sirius will ever need that that’s _his_ Percy, besides perhaps the tattoo, which is pulsing warmly beneath his hoodie. “Rothmans, right?” He produces a packet of Player’s from his back pocket, offering it out to Percy; his mother is about to begin screaming when Sirius comes in to save him this time. “He just came back from seventy-eight, for heaven’s sake, Molly. Everyone smoked.”

“Outside, then,” she says indignantly, moving to confer with her husband, who has taken a keen interest in the lighter Percy has just flung him as a distraction.

They sit on the step outside, and Sirius kisses him a few more times. “Fuck,” he whispers. “It’s been so long.” Percy smiles, lighting the cigarette falling between his lips as he leans on Sirius’s shoulder; it’s been mere moments for him, though they also feel a little like stretched lifetimes if he thinks about them too hard, but for Sirius it’s been a long and testy eighteen years, and he looks so damn _happy_ that Percy feels like it’ll spread like a virus.

“What have I missed? Are Alice and Frank – are they okay?” He’s set upon by a sudden desperation – what if it didn’t work, what if they were still caught and are still stuck mindless in St Mungo’s?

Sirius’s frown dispels his worries. “What? They’re fine; they’re two of the most accomplished Aurors out there, you know.” He takes a drag from Percy’s cigarette with a sneaky grin. “They left the country when they had their son, like you said, but they came back a couple of years ago because they wanted him to go to Hogwarts.”

“Oh, thank _fuck_ ,” he breathes, excusing the expletives because of his sheer _want_ for them to be alright. “Where I’m from, they were tortured into insanity by Death Eaters. It was horrible; Neville told me once, in confidence, and seeing Alice and Frank knowing what would happen to them – I had to do something.”

“What happened to me?” Percy looks over. “You told me not to trust Peter. Something must’ve happened to me. What?”

“You were framed as a mass murderer and sent to Azkaban,” Percy says quickly, not entirely sure how to explain the debacle; Sirius lets out a long breath, and Percy gives him the rest of his cigarette, lighting another. “Don’t think about it. Please. Just tell me what I missed; it’s been a new eighteen years.”

Sirius laughs. “Just a lifetime or so.”

Percy hasn’t missed much, for which he’s grateful. Before he explains the full complexities of what he’s been through to the Order, he sends an owl to Neville; Sirius and Fred and George and Harry all try equally vainly to see what he’s writing, but he’s become an expert in hiding things, and the letter leaves with Errol as yet unread.

* * *

Percy falls asleep on the couch straight after the Order meeting, and almost everyone is gone the next day, for some reason or another. He feels a little like he has a cold, and makes his tea with honey just in case.

In his own room, he finds that Sirius has given him the record player, flanked by a few dozen sleeves; on his bed, he’s also been left a packet of Rothmans and a stack of his old books. He smiles; left alone though he may be, Sirius clearly doesn’t want to leave him bored, and he places the nearest record (proclaimed by the cover to be _Here Comes Your Man_ ) under the needle as he settles onto the bed, hoping that the unwell haziness will pass soon.

He’s interrupted from dozing over _The Shining_ by the sound of Walburga screaming insults, and he groans, pulling himself out of bed with concerted effort to find whoever made the dreadful mistake; usually, it’s just someone having been a tad on the loud side, but even he can hear the clattering downstairs.

When he descends the stairs, he finds that it’s Neville, having knocked over a vase, looking extremely sheepish. “Um, hi, Percy.”

“Hello, Neville,” Percy says with a smile. “What brings you here?”

“Well, my parents wanted to come and see you.” Percy nods, doing his best to silence Walburga’s terrifying fury before stepping past Neville and following the noise of footsteps and soft murmurings to the kitchen.

Like Sirius, Alice and Frank look older, but they look so much the same: Alice still has her cropped hair, and she looks a little rounder and less boisterous, but she still almost knocks Percy over with the force of her hug. “Fucking hell,” she grins. “You took your time.” She brushes her hands through his hair, and along the curves of his mildly stubbled chin. “You look the same!”

“Well, it’s been no time to me,” he says with a smile, moving along to hug Frank, too.

“Fuck,” says Alice, grabbing Frank’s arm. “He’s missed Twin Peaks. We need to show him Twin Peaks. He’ll _love_ Twin Peaks.”

“He’s missed a lot,” Frank says softly, “but right now maybe he could use a sit down; I’m sure he’s also missing some sleep.” Percy nods thankfully, and takes a seat at the intimidatingly long dining table, rubbing at his forehead. “I don’t mean to get into the thick of the more negative aspects of this right as you’ve come back, but... I imagine Sirius is finding your return difficult. He’s formed a whole life without you, after all. I just feel like I ought to warn you.”

“Is this the part where you tell me he’s been with Remus for the past twenty years?” Percy asks warily, looking up at Frank, who is leaning on the table. His hands suit his wedding band, which is probably titanium, though still scuffed from encounters.

“No,” he says with a wiry smile. “He’s been single for the past twenty years, though I’m sure most of that comes down to that it’s very hard to date while you’re an Auror.”

Percy raises an eyebrow. “He’s an Auror?”

“Was, anyway. He’s among one of the spate of retirements thanks to Dolores Umbridge.” Percy shivers just at her name. “Yes, quite. Absolutely despotic – besides the point, many of us are increasingly taken up with work for the Order.”

“Not me,” Alice says with a grin. “Still legally kicking butt.”

She leans forward to hug him again. “But we’ve missed you so much.” He puts his arms up and clings to her as he hugs back, tight; he feels so bad he feels, yet again, like the guilt might eat him. “This you, anyway. The you that was here before was a bit of a tosspot.”

“Alice,” Frank says with a voice that’s both terse and exasperated.

“Okay. Sorry, that was uncalled for.” (Though Percy knows it’s true.) “Anyway!” Her grin spreads like wildfire with aerosols thrown in. “How about we start a crash course of reacquainting you with the world and everything you’ve missed?”

This sounds like a mammoth task; she makes it sound like spelling ‘cat’. Nonetheless, Percy smiles back up at her and Frank, who’s beginning to look keen again. “I’d love to,” he says.

He can’t believe what he’s missed.

* * *

Dumbledore reiterates Frank’s idea that Sirius is going to find him difficult to see again, to adjust to, to understand; he gets these looks from all across the table when there are meetings that seem to read the same thing, and it’s enough to make him angry, but he says nothing. His mother takes the gentle lull in his relationship with Sirius to finally find a time to really scream at him about his new aesthetic, too, and he knows for certain that – to an extent – everything is finally normal then. He relays his story to Dumbledore and Kingsley. Focus shifts back to Harry. Bill and Charlie send owls.

Funnily enough, Percy’s best reassurances come from the twins, who venture into his room while he’s listening to _Combat Rock_ and smoking out the window; Sirius is yet again away doing something or another, leaving him alone. One day, he’ll be a part of that work again, but he’s been told to rest for a long time, and so he stubbornly does.

“Can we get smokes, Percy?” Fred asks inquisitively.

“Piss off,” says Percy. “They’re not menthol, anyway.”

George frowns. “Menthol?”

“Nothing. But you’re not getting any; it’s a very bad habit, and one the seventies shouldn’t be thanked for.” He knows he should probably stop, but he wants to at least finish the packet first; he’s cut down already, to make a twenty last this long. It feels like his last comfort from a time he’s going to forget soon enough. “What do you two want?”

“To talk to our dear brother?” Fred suggests. Percy ducks back out from the window, the cigarette incinerating itself in his hand as he slams it shut.

“You’ve never wanted to do that before,” he points out.

“You’ve never looked cool before,” Fred retorts, flopping in time with George onto Percy’s bed and peering over at the spinning record, looking rather perturbed that Percy is listening to something that isn’t classical music or smooth jazz; Percy, too, would be surprised that he listens to The Clash if he hadn’t spent just about a year listening to punk records and falling peculiarly in love with them all.

Self-consciously, he thumbs the tattoo on his arm, today covered by a long sleeve and quiet, not glowing at all. It flickers from time to time, though Percy isn’t entirely sure what that’s meant to be an indicator of. “Well, what would you like to talk to my newly cool self about?”

“Maybe that you’re getting it on with a man that’s, what, twenty years older than you?”

“Very exciting,” George chimes in. Percy feels a sudden urge to melt into and become part of the floor.

“You know the story, then,” Percy replies, taking a seat on the bed a person’s width away from George, lest they try sending him back in time again (once was bad enough, especially considering the rebounds on his health). “If you ask me anything inappropriate, I’ll turn you into newts.”

“Can you do that?” Fred questions.

Percy doesn’t hesitate. “I proved my dissertation in the nineteen seventies by turning a Death Eater into a sea urchin, and got given a commendation by McGonagall.”

George makes a face. “You actually _did_ another dissertation? You’re a sick bastard.” He shakes his head. “Crazy bugger. Anyway, fine, not inappropriate, please let me stay as a human being right now – do you think he’s gonna stay with you? You know, what with you still being whatever age you are and him being thirty-something, and you having been gone for so long?”

“If you break up, we want to offer our unconditional support,” Fred adds, nodding. Percy sighs.

“I don’t know,” he says simply. “I hope that we stay together.”

Fred grins, lying flat on his back on the bed with a bounce, staring up at the pattern on the ceiling. “He _is_ pretty good-looking.” He rolls over and prods at Percy’s waist, making him yelp involuntarily. “So – you have to tell us what happened in nineteen seventy whatever! You can’t just get magically transported there and _not_ spill the beans.”

“Mostly, I had to go to school and do my work,” Percy points out. “It wasn’t all fun and games – though plenty of it was; Exploding Snap was popular because you could get a few games in between studying, and a lot of people played poker, certainly.” He sits up a little. “We used to play music in the common room all the time and dance to it. For all James Potter had to brag about, he was a very bad dancer.”

“Let me guess,” says George, “you danced romantically with Sirius in the common room?”

“Romantic isn’t the word I’d use to describe most of it; not listening to the Pistols, anyway.” Percy scratches at the side of his hoodie; he’s been wearing it non-stop, like a comfort. It _is_ a comfort. “I _did_ have a lot of fights with James and his so-called Marauders. You would be proud; I first kissed Sirius in a detention.”

“Detention!” cries Fred.

“Percy Weasley!” George gasps.

“Detention!”

George claps him on the back. “Never knew you had it in you to not only get a detention, but _snog_ someone in one. And a boy, too!”

“Oh, come on, George. You can’t be that prissy and _not_ want to fuck boys; he just gets lots of pokers up his arse.”

“Fred, for Merlin’s sake–” Percy breaks off into laughter, wiping his eyes. “You two would’ve gotten along so well with James. He was always causing trouble, and saying stupid things like that – in fact, all four of them were just a danger zone. You two probably would’ve had a riot back then, that’s for sure, causing mayhem with the Marauders...” He smiles wistfully.

“Yeah, well, glad it was you, right?” Fred leans over. “I mean, _we_ wouldn’t have managed to get a boyfriend and apparently save lives by being thoughtful.”

“No,” says George, “and we definitely wouldn’t have done any more dissertations.”

Percy smiles; he could reminisce about seventy seven-eight for hours, and he almost does, recalling common room antics and literary commentary with Alice and Frank, and once his tongue is loose and he’s changed the record to one of the many new Bowie albums that seem to have surfaced in the time he’s been gone, he even lets slip some of the Room of Requirement’s lesser-known functions; the twins are wide-eyed with glee, and whether it’s because their straight-laced brother has actually gotten laid more than once or because they’ve found out something new and potentially fun about Hogwarts, he can’t tell. He tells them about Christmas at Alice’s, New Year’s with Sirius, pulls off his hoodie and lets them wolf whistle and jeer at his pierced nipples and admire his tattoo, which is beginning to take on a slight hue, meaning that Sirius must be on his way back – or just nearer by. It’s inconvenient for Percy in that way.

He lights another cigarette. “But you still haven’t given me a real answer. I’m sure you didn’t really come here to listen to me ramble about things you likely don’t care about, so why are you here talking to me at all?”

Percy can practically see George swallow a quip about something before he manages “well, we were really worried about you, mate”. He shifts uncomfortably; talking emotionally has never been their strong point, and though George is undeniably better than Fred at it, he doesn’t seem to enjoy the experience much.

“Yeah,” Fred chimes in, like they’re tossing a ticking bomb between each other. “I mean, when you came back and hugged me and told me you loved me – that’s not your style. It was just weird, and you _looked_ weird, and we just wanted to see what was up, to see what had happened to you.”

“Dumbledore and Lupin were both worried about you, too,” George chimes in. “We just wanted to check in on you. Honest.”

“I’m fine, for the most part,” Percy assures them. “Come back to me if my relationship with Sirius falls through, because then I might not be okay and need liberal amounts of ice cream.” (He hopes they’ll be fine. He’ll be crushed if they’re not – he’s not come all the way from 1978 for _that_.)

George flicks through Percy’s newly acquired collection of records and breaks the subject by talking about them instead; unbeknownst to Percy (and even Fred, from the bewildered look on his face), he has a surprisingly good knowledge of Muggle music – not so much of the fringes that Percy and Sirius listened to, but he knows some of it, particularly Bowie and Fleetwood Mac, and when he leaves an hour later, Fred in tow, he throws Percy a smile that almost reassures him.

Percy also finds out at dinner that Fred is intimidated by Alice; he finds this so funny he almost chokes, and the idea that he gets to tell her this and laugh with her about it later fills his heart with glee.

* * *

Percy needn’t have worried; life goes on like nothing has changed, and like everything has, but through it all like a constant is Sirius, and their scratched-up 12” _Rumours_.

* * *

It’s quiet once everyone is back at school; Percy is stoically told that he can’t yet help with Order work because he’s so newly returned, so he spends most of his time logging all the books in the house and reading them as he makes his way through his record collection, watering his cactus now and then, watching it sprout up. He likes his new records, but he can’t help but go back to the ones he used to listen to in the common room. They make him feel secure.

He keeps growing his hair out. It’s long now, and he clips it at the back so that some of it forms a small ponytail while the rest curls round his shoulders. He gets his nose pierced on the other side. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he’s all Percy Marsh, not Percy Weasley, and he thinks he’s fine with that.

For the most part, Sirius is away doing this or that for someone or another. Percy doesn’t mind; it’s hardly Sirius’s _choice_ to be away all the time, and so he gets to know the other Order members again in ways he didn’t before, settling back into what always had to be his home. He doesn’t mind it, though: Tonks, who he’d dismissed previously for being klutzy and not the brightest, turns out to be fun to spend time with and she does his hair every now and then and helps him dye his leather jacket yellow.

He’s glad he left; he’s glad, too, that he came back.

“Yellow, huh? What’s wrong with black?” Sirius asks, scrutinising Percy’s jacket; he grins at it anyway, looking proud.

“Nothing. Just thought it might look more interesting – besides, it’s the Pistols’ colour.” Percy slings it on; it’s packed with heating charms for the winter, as they’re going to visit Alice and Frank. The week prior, Percy had sent Neville a Herbology book he’d found underneath the bed in what had been Regulus’s room, and Alice had therefore invited him over for some drinks for the favour. “Though I know they’re a bit out of favour now.”

“They’ll never be out of favour to me.” Sirius glances over at the record player. “ _The Wall_?”

“I like it,” Percy shrugs.

“Always thought you would.” Sirius loops his arms around Percy’s neck, their foreheads touching. “You know, everybody else is different. They grew up and got old and fought in battles, but you – you’re exactly the same, and I like that. Everybody else is jaded.”

“I’m just me, Sirius,” Percy says, knotting his hands around Sirius’s neck and kissing him; he sways a little on his feet, _Comfortably Numb_ rocking the room around them, a year too late for the common room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've reached the end! Thank you so much for reading this :D All the chapter titles are names of songs that were on the albums that they listened to, by the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I'm quite passionate about this fic, and I hope you guys will be, too. <3 Come yell at me on Tumblr @chrlieweasleys!


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